“Are you certain?” Charlie asks me as we speak through the ever-improving comm system. After only a few days the fuzzy tube-tv feel from the screen has started to give way to something closer to what we would find in a decent LCD screen, though not quite to the level of the most expensive high definition systems. I can notice blurriness from even three feet away, though after a moment I remember my perception stat increase and the comparison becomes more nuanced in my mind. I shake off those thoughts and answer his question.

“Yes, I’m certain. You can call him or wait for his call, I don’t think it is going to take very long. For them, even a one percent ‘tax’ would be a huge boon to their economy. Especially considering we will ‘instantly’ be able to ship goods anywhere in the instance and increase the revenue coming in by… a lot. If we plan things correctly.”

“And as we expand the roads and our own distribution network, the other villages will already be used to dealing with us and we won’t have to start from scratch,” Charlie says.

I nod and continue speaking. “I didn’t even think it was a possibility until I heard something he mentioned about how they were shipping stuff 9 villages over. Almost 900 miles.”

“You talked about instantly hitting the entire instance, how do you do you suggest we get news spread out that fast?”

“Just pay the merchant to deliver a few letters,” I say with a wide grin on my face.

“Ohhh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Charlie says.

“Neither did I, someone else came up with the idea, but the cost didn’t sound very appealing without the means to ship goods and currency back and forth at the time and we were working with a much smaller budget back then.”

“Well, if there is nothing else I will let you get on with your day and start to prepare for this deal.”

I nod as he shuts off the connection, and slowly the root and branches shroud around me retract into the ground. A few people gawk for a moment at the movement, but I ignore them with a thousand other things running through my mind, as I take the last bite before getting up.

After leaving 20 coppers for the sumptuous meal on the table, about four times what most other people paid given how much I ate. As I get ready to leave by stretching a wave of tiredness comes over me.

I should probably have used the time I was waiting around to sleep, but drawing runes with Aether, improving my control of vigor and the other resources along with a dozen other things sounded a lot more important at the time. I look at the sky, already knowing the time, but the action is automatic by now, and judge the time to be around 17h15. Still 45 minutes to sunset but I don’t mind including a few minutes of daylight in my sleep schedule.

With plans of building a little hut a few minutes out, I look to my side and there I see the inn again. People only ate there and I never heard of anyone actually renting a room to sleep, but I would find out if there was anything to it.

It would probably not be anything exciting, but the new experience sounds like a good idea and after paying 3 coppers, I climb the stairs and enter the room the innkeeper shows me.

It’s simple but there is great value in simplicity.

I climb in the cotton sheet bed and retract all the roots covering my body into the inner world before laying back on the closest thing to a proper mattress I felt since coming to this place. The suspended rope design and the variations I made with roots were quite comfortable but this is closer to what we were used to back on Earth.

Slowing my thoughts and letting the waves of exhaustion catch up to me, I sink in the bed deeper and deeper.

Hours later, I’m rested and ready to wake up.

I look around at the unfamiliar place. I don’t have anything to complain about the quality of sleep elsewhere, in fact, it was very restful but there was something about the inn, something that probably only someone with a high perception stat would have noticed. I was ever so slightly more rested than I expected given the length and conditions of my sleep.

It could be just a fluke, but I don’t think so.

I stretch for a moment before giving a last look at the room and I walk down the stairs, to find a surprised innkeeper staring at me.

“Ohh, are you up already.”

“Yeah, I never sleep more than a couple of hours except if I’m really exhausted.”

“You know that you can spend up to 8 hours right?”

“Yes, but I don’t need to sleep that long. Two hours is plenty for me.”

He nods and says:

“Most people don't see the benefits from sleeping in the inn. They are far and few, but they exist.”

I look intently at him wondering if there really is a hidden mechanic or it was just he was blowing smoke up my ….

With a knowing smile, trying to drag a little more out of him, I say:

“Or you just want to get all my hard earned coin.”

His face as it twitches, though it doesn’t look to be from shame at being caught red-handed, it's closer to…. sadness. I almost miss it but in my perception field I’m able to pick up much subtler ticks and facial movements than vision alone can. I can’t pay attention to the entire column, but paying attention to anything in my direct field of view, and especially someone like him should become an automatic action.

SO, is the sadness real or is he just a really good poker player? If it was a comment from Blackwood, I wouldn’t doubt his hints, but I don't know this man.

Still whenever I was in a village a few copper coins would not bankrupt me.

“I will take your advice under consideration.”

I say and he furrows his brows but doesn't say anything else. Before he moves off to attend to other people, I feel ready to eat again even after the short time asleep and so I ask:

“Can you get a double portion of whatever is on the menu today?”

He nods without turning his back leaving me with my thoughts.

The system really changed our bodies. Back on Earth, my last meal would have me in a lot of pain, even considering I was already used to eating larger meals if less often than most people. But digesting everything in a little over 2 hours was truly a record and it didn’t even get in the way of my sleep. Though perhaps I shouldn’t be pushing my body like this. Relying on the system to take care of that may be a bad habit to get. Something to ponder on.

Looking around the feel all around the salon isn’t much different than what has developed in my village. There are only half a dozen people actually eating here, what most of them hold is a mug in hand. Part of them will be holding a beer, soothing I never particularly liked, and the rest hold kava, a type of bubbling juice that didn’t match my palate.

Until I made the Parsimons kava was the only real source of sugar and some people lived for it, though I didn't trust the effect it had on my carefully balanced biochemistry and stayed away from the stuff.

Shrugging, I sit down and pay attention to my food, but after a few seconds a conversation two tables over piques my curiosity. Three people talk in fairly low tones, but I can clearly hear it over the hustle and bustle from the other patrons.

“So did you find her?” Says the one turned away from me.

“No, not yet. And worse yet another of our scouts has gone missing.” Another sting in the same table answers.

“Who?”

“Andrew, he was supposed to check on the area around the high-level zone, but he didn’t come back.”

“Do you think he…?” I hear from the third one before the send continues:

“He isn’t stupid and with both the red branch the plant guy left behind and our own markings around the high-level zone he would need to be blind to enter it by mistake. We are missing something.”

I’m glad they appreciate the present I left behind, but if there was something wrong with the HLZ, I needed to know. Uncertain of whether I will find what I’m looking for, I send my conscience back south to the Home village and then all the way through long tendril to the little hut just outside the high level zone turning on the perception field and scanning the area. I scan the entire place for a few minutes but find nothing out of the ordinary.

I see the wooden spikes driven in the ground for some 60 kilometers around the closest point of this village to the high-level zone. Still concerned about the changes, and wondering if this could be what the automaton warned us about I send a thread of mana and start forming a small but still large enough tunnel underground encroaching in the territory of one of the beats. In seconds I feel it approaching and as it gets close, it stamps the ground and with a wave of mana, it collapses the 5-foot long tunnel.

I create another and another trying to goad the beast into leaving the high level zone or have any abnormal reactions. If the limits have changed somehow it would be catastrophic. But I keep taunting it long after the beast starts frothing at the mouth with my taunts, but it still doesn’t cross a single hair to our side.

After confirming the line for the high level zone is still precisely where it’s supposed to be, I sigh in relief and go back to my soup in peace. If the HLZ was expanding things would take a sharp turn for the worse, but that was not what had happened.

It’s not very nice they have two missing people, but it was bound to happen once in a while and there was nothing extraordinarily dangerous about that.

I get up finally ready to leave this village, and before I can even look around and see something else interesting, I leave the village. I wanted to come back to my own house again. I was mostly living in the village, in the last couple of weeks, but I didn’t want to lose the place and periodic breaks when I was alone for the benefits it provided to my mental state and creativity.

Already having paid, I just leave the bowl and plate on the table heading out of the village. As I fly back the missing people don’t leave my mind, there was something that nags me about the missing pair of scouts, but try as I might, I can’t pinpoint what was bothering me about it or learn anything new, so I eventually force myself to let go.

With only the moon to illuminate my way I zip across the grey skies and let myself be absorbed not even bothering to help Aspen connect to the roots underground as he tried to open and close the inner world portal fast enough.

Most of the time he failed, but it was something he should learn and I almost let myself meditate like I was on top of my bicycle dozens of miles from civilization in any direction moving with my own power.