Once we beached the boats on our lake, chaos ensued. Everybody had new stuff they were dying to try out, and a 101 things they’d thought of after visiting the XP store. Everyone was talking at cross purposes until Debbie put back her head and let out a full throated scream like some chick in a slasher movie. Everyone stopped and stared at her and she shrugged.

“Sorry, I can’t whistle very loud and I needed everyone’s attention. Here’s what we’re going to do first. Hunter and Jeri, go check out your tree house. I know it’s been an issue and you’re both going to be pretty worthless until you’ve seen it so go do that real quick, but come back. John, take Steve for backup and try and figure out what we’re going to do about animal pens. I know it’s time sensitive to get them out of the carrier thing, so the pens are the first thing we build. We’ll all help once you’ve got a site picked out. Allison, if you’ll take a quick patrol around the edge of the treeline, make sure there are no tracks or anything and we’re still relatively safe here in camp. Jack, can you start moving the stuff out of the way of the door to the keep? I’m going to take the new guys on a quick tour of where everything is, then we’ll come help you. Everybody okay with that?”

We all agreed with various degrees of enthusiasm and everyone split up to their assigned task. It didn’t look like anything had disturbed the brush we’d piled up in front of the keep, but I looked forward to a lock on the door where we wouldn’t have to do this part again. A couple of minutes into it, the others came and joined me. Helen and Sam were both hard workers, but honestly Kenny put us all to shame. For a florist he was one hell of a firewood hauler, carrying a couple of logs by himself that Hunter and I had taken together when we put them in place. By the way he slung it up and onto his shoulder, he seemed to think they weren’t really all that heavy and I wondered what his brawn setting was at on his character sheet.

Hunter and Jeri came back after we were finished but while we were still waiting on John and my curiosity was killing me.

“What’s the deal guys? What’s functional plumbing come out to?”

Hunter answered me while Jeri slipped past to go talk to Debbie.

“Eh, it’s good and bad. You remember that purple flash flush toilet at Tim’s house?”

“Yep.”

“I got one of those. Also a sink and a shower head coming out of the wall, no hot water. Everything’s tied to a big tank that’s been built on to like the bottom of our house. There’s a fill spigot on the side and I dumped my canteen in. Apparently if we fill the tank with water it’ll pressurise it so we can use the sink and the shower. Used waste water drops into a grate on the floor and just disappears. One waterskin goes pretty damn fast, it’s gonna take a while to fill the tank.”

“Sounds kind of like an RV. You might talk to Debbie about how to fill your tank, I think she’s got some ideas that might surprise you.”

John came back then, and we all followed him over to where he wanted the pens. Once he explained, the plan seemed pretty reasonable. He’d followed the cliff face over past the keep far enough the smell shouldn’t be an issue, and he wanted to build a fence in a loop using the cliff as one wall so the construction was easier. He’d picked a spot where the grass grew right up to the rocks so there should be some natural grazing, and he wanted the fence to come out far enough to include a couple of small trees so the chickens would have some place to get up off the ground in case a predator got inside.

We had a short little argument about what kind of fence to build. Apparently all he’d used back in the real world had been commercially produced welded wire panels and he wanted to put up a full on palisade fence to pen the animals. Wood was free but labor was a bitch so I talked him into a stack fence. Once he realized what I was describing he came around easy enough and we all got to work. Debbie’s magic chainsaws made everything a hell of a lot easier.

Steve seemed to be able to use one indefinitely and most of the rest of us could only keep one going for about 15 minutes or so, except Kenny, Helen, and Sam who had trouble running it at all. It still sped things up quite a bit. I walked a few folks through how to split the trunks lengthwise with the chainsaws. Steve stayed on that while the rest of us took turns between that and dragging the felled stuff into place. We mostly took down the trees with the two man buck saw run by Helen and Sam, while Kenny and I lifted the logs into place. Occasionally someone on the chainsaw would pop over and take down a tree too just to keep up with the pace.

After a couple hours in we’d made a hell of a lot of progress and the stacks had reached about waist high along the length of the pen. According to John we needed a couple more feet all the way around, but he singled me out for another project.

“Here you go, Jack. I got this at the XP store.” He pulled out one of those big plastic kiddie pools like you see in peoples yards in the summer time.

“Gee thanks, it’ll be refreshing to go for a swim when we’re done. Did you get me floaties?”

“You’re funny but looks ain’t everything, Jack. It was a hell of a lot cheaper than a metal stock tank. I figure if somebody digs a hole and drops this inside, it’ll work like one of those little coy ponds. You still got that full sized shovel?”

I sighed and pulled my shovel out of the messenger bag. “Where do you want it?”

He sent me to the lake side of the pen so it would be easier to fill and I started to dig. It was a pain in the ass to get the bottom of the hole level and keep everything square but I managed it. I kept the top inch or so of the pool out of the ground so they’d be less likely to kick dirt into it once it was filled and John came over and tossed a short length of log inside that he’d trimmed the bark off of.

“What’s that for?”

“Chickens and mice if they’ve got ‘em around here. Small animals fall into the water and drown, you’ll make all the livestock sick but most of em can’t climb out of the smooth walls of a stock tank. They can climb up on the wood though, and most will figure out a way out of the water from there.”

It wasn’t something I’d seen before, but it made sense so I nodded at him. He returned it but gestured back at the fencing. “We still need more rails.” I followed him back to the grind and joined the rest of the group. Even with 10 of us working non-stop it was well into the evening by the time we finished the fence to John’s standard. It was chest high more or less all the way around, and followed the natural lay of the land in a kind of zig zag pattern for stability. We hadn’t put a gate in, but it would be easy enough to shift one of the stacks later if we decided one was necessary. John climbed over the fence and I handed him the cat carrier across the top. He put his hand on the latch and looked over at us.

“I been curious about how this is going to work.”

There was a flash of green light as he opened up the little door on the front, and a chicken came squawking out. The chicken seemed to expand a bit as it cleared the container and without a pause the rest of the animals followed. With the way the chicken had dropped to the ground flapping, John sat the carrier down just in time, because animals kept flooding out. The goats were full sized within two or three steps out of the container, but the llama made it clear almost to the side of the pen before it stopped growing. The animals seemed to all get along with each other but the male goat came over and tried butting at John. He met its lowered head with his boot and I heard the impact from where I was standing. John staggered back a little but the goat seemed unaffected and John climbed out of the pen.

“We should put some feed down or something for the chickens so they’ll know to stick around, but I don’t have anything. If everybody will haul at least one bucket we can get them some water though.”

I shook my head and pointed at the fence. “That’ll keep them in but you really think it’ll keep something like the hell moose or a pack of those wolves out? We’re gonna need to leave somebody on guard here 24/7.”

Sam volunteered to keep an eye on things with the bow he and Helen had borrowed from Allison and I made a mental note we needed to come up with more gear for the new people if we wanted them productive. Debbie accepted his offer and called out to the rest of us.

“Okay, it’s getting late, so here’s the plan. Everybody dump their waterskin into the tank to start it off, then we all head over to the lake and fill back up and fill up any buckets or whatever you can grab from the keep. We’ll make a single trip and should be able to fill it pretty far. When we get back we’ll start a fire and if Steve will cook, everybody can kick in a little something we’ll eat and discuss what to do from there while we’re right here and Sam can participate. Sound good?”

I voiced my approval by walking over and starting to drain my water skin, and the rest of the group joined me. Jeri and Hunter were dry, but with the inventory bags people managed to carry quite a bit of water with them and we made a good showing with the first go around. By the time all the homemade buckets from the keep and John and I’s actual buckets were brought back and another round of water skins, the kiddie pool was full. One of the llamas wandered over and stuck his muzzle into the water and I guess that meant it would work.

Steve had a big stew pot on the fire, and everyone started pitching in whatever they felt like. I was good for a sliced up potato and some bear jerky and not-onions. John put in another potato and a handful of baby carrots. Jeri and Hunter broke out a dutch oven and started putting together what I was pretty sure was going to be biscuits. Helen put in chunks of some kind of mystery meat, and I’m pretty sure what I saw Kenny drop in there was pineapple slices. Debbie dumped in a can of cream of mushroom soup and sprinkled some kind of seasoning in, and the smell from the pot started filling the air. I didn’t know if we’d be able to eat like this all the time, but life was definitely looking up. Living off of only what we could kill had definitely been getting old. Conversation had been desultory as the food cooked, but eventually everyone had a bowl going and Debbie kicked off the meeting.

“Alright, folks. Ton of stuff going on, we all got some ideas from what we picked up in the XP shop and we should hash them around, but first things first. LIvestock is going to need a constant guard now, but I think it’s close enough to the keep we can just use the one person at night. Probably have them stay close to here with a fire built up though. We’ve got 10 people, how do we want to do shifts?”

Helen cleared her throat and looked hesitant. Allison smiled at her and spoke up, “Go ahead, we’re not doing Robert’s Rules of order or anything. The group’s too small for that.”

Helen nodded and smiled back. “The three of us, Sam, Kenny, and I all owe membership dues or whatever, right? We could split the day watches three ways and still kick in the half day work everybody else does. That ought to catch us up right?”

I cut in before anybody else could accept. “How long you guys willing to work that, and are you still in the rotation for night watches?”

Sam shot me an irritated look, but everyone else seemed curious for an answer and Helen looked at Kenny and Sam for help. “I don’t know, I just thought about it. We’d need to all agree on something.”

Kenny straightened up from where he’d been shoveling stew into his mouth. “It seems fair. Since this is paying ya’ll back we’d stay in the night rotation of course. Not sure how long we should do it for. How much XP did everyone kick in in the beginning? What seems reasonable?”

I didn’t want to tell him my primary contribution had been the boat because he’d made his own. Luckily Debbie fielded the question before anyone else brought it up because that would have been awkward.

“Different people kicked in different amounts. I’m the only one who knows exact numbers and I’d prefer to keep it confidential to prevent hard feelings. Let’s say it was an income based kind of thing and everyone put in a substantial amount of what they had and leave it at that. There’s 22 days left from the 30 day mark the game gave us, so call it three weeks. You guys okay with that?”

They all looked at one another in some kind of silent vote but it was Sam who finally spoke. “That seems fair if the company agrees it buys out our debt, and I’d like at least one day off a week. In case anybody needs to attend religious services or something.”

I couldn’t help but snort at the idea of taking time off for church services, but I didn’t say anything. I remembered the shit storm that had ensued when one of the sergeants in my platoon had said some of the Catholics who’d left a jobsite to go take communion were slacking off having snackies with the preacher while the rest of us worked. I’d learned from example not to screw with people’s religious convictions so I kept quiet and let it play out. The group took Sam’s counter offer and we had most of the day shifts covered. We split the night shift into three sections and made up a rotation. Everybody would have a couple days off in a row, and the even number of people meant that which shift you got stuck with gradually changed so nobody would get screwed with middle watch permanently.

With that out of the way Debbie opened the meeting up for new business and a shit ton of proposals came out. Debbie’s plumbing idea was pretty popular, and Allison wanted to head out and confirm some of the stuff on Tim’s map. John wanted everyone to kick in on expanding the garden into a full fledged farm, and only Steve seemed to consider it a good idea. I proposed we build some kind of defensive wall out from the cliff face and all the way around to where the river kicked out of the lake. It was probably the least popular suggestion and I wondered if this was how Tim had felt when he’d tried the same thing back in the village. Hunter and Jeri didn’t really have a pet project for the group, although Hunter mentioned he had a way to build a kiln capable of higher temperatures now. None of the new people had any suggestions, although Helen looked thoughtful a couple of times. I was guessing they were waiting to get to know us all a little better before they tried changing anything up. After an hour or so of fruitless back and forth Debbie settled us all down again.

“Here’s what I think we should try. We’ve got the ability to buy upgrades to the keep, smokehouse, and shower now, but the more advanced they are the cheaper the upgrades get. I say tomorrow everyone pitch in on upgrading them as far as we can till midday. Run the waterline, put in a lock, maybe upgrade the furniture available. Whatever people can think of and get finished in a day. We’ll break to eat and then vote on what to buy. Everybody’ll do there own thing the rest of the day and we’ll go back to company business the day after. We can figure out what project to pursue then. That sound okay?”

Everyone agreed, or at least didn’t object enough to say anything aloud and the meeting broke up. I wasn’t on watch till the next night, so I headed to my spot in the keep and flipped through wikipedia until I drifted off to sleep.