I was up with the sun in the morning, and after a quick visit to the treeline, I tried setting up my new magic solar panel. It didn’t come with an instruction booklet, but the whole thing seemed pretty straight forward. I undid the latch and folded out two thin leaves from the large flat panel on the top. They were purple with tiny almost iridescent green lines honeycombing the surface. I was guessing that was the solar panel part. The main panel sat on top of a cylinder about eight inches long that fed into a bulky, almost organic looking shell of some kind. One side of the shell had a three prong socket like you’d see in a standard electrical outlet and a host of different grooves and ridges and openings. It looked like you could plug a dozen different kinds of batteries into the thing to charge them up, and I hoped the 20 volt dewalt stuff I’d bought was one of them. There was a single switch on the opposite side of the shell, with a tiny LED next to it. Once I had the panels out and the whole thing leaned up against the cliff face where it wouldn’t fall over, I flipped the switch and saw the tiny light came on.

That looked like it was turned on, so I pulled out my first battery and plugged it in. I didn’t know if there was overcharge protection built into this or how that would work, so I made a mental note to come and check it every once in a while. It should get warm to the touch if it was overloading. By the time I had finished that, everyone else was up and had started gathering in front of the keep and I walked over to join them. John and Hunter were arguing on whether the line should go in through the wall or under, but I solved that by picking up the coil.

“Has anyone checked that it’s actually long enough to reach yet?”

No one had so I handed the spigot end to John and walked toward the lake, dropping loops of hose as I went. The water’s edge was probably at least a couple hundred feet from the keep, and even though it looked like a large roll, I didn’t think it would make it. By the time I got to the lake there were still a couple of coils left and I’d left lots of slack in the hose as I went as well. There’d been more of the stuff than it looked, and I tossed the pump end out as far as I could get it. It took a moment, but the little cylinder on the end sank and took the end of the hose with it. I walked back towards the keep, and when I got a little closer hollered to them.

“It’s in. Somebody try turning on the spigot.”

By the time I got there Debbie was standing there with a dissapointed look on her face with a dry hose in her hand. “Are you sure the other end is in the water, Jack?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty obvious where the edge of the lake is. What’s it doing?”

“Nothing, it made like a gurgle sound when we first turned it on and now nothing.”

Allison patted her on the shoulder. “Maybe it takes a minute to kick on? We don’t know how the magic pump works.”

I was about to throw my own two cents in when a low moan started coming from the line. We all stopped and stared at the hose in Debbie’s hand, then with a final gurgle and a large spurt the water started flowing out. Debbie gave out a whoop and put her thumb over the opening to ramp up the pressure and sprayed a large arc into the air above us all. Isolated drops rained down around us as she shut the spigot back off and grinned.

“We’ve got running water now folks.”

The group definitely wanted the water faucet inside the keep, and it made sense if we were talking siege at any point. Nobody could agree on how to accomplish it, and I got frustrated enough to yell.

“Hey, everybody shut the fuck up.” People stopped and everyone stared at me. I could tell at least a few of them were kind of pissed but I didn’t really care at this point. “Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. 9 guys trying to lay this water line will turn it into a monkey fucking a football. We need to spread out and do different things or I’m gonna lose my shit.”

Debbie stepped in and smoothed things over. “He’s got a point, even if he was kind of assholey on the delivery. We need to break this down into separate jobs so everyone isn’t constantly tripping on one another. We can do pottery now, somebody should build better racks and maybe come up with a better ventilation plan for the smokehouse. I’m thinking 2 people, any volunteers?”

Jeri planted an elbow in Hunters ribs and he lifted an arm while he mean mugged her. “I guess we’ll take that part.”

Debbie nodded. “Thanks, that’s great. I was thinking better walls and a real door for the shower station, maybe a little bench or table we could set our clothes on so they won’t get wet. Anybody want that one?”

Helen raised her hand. “To have a functional shower? You betcha I’m all over it. Kenny you wanna give me a hand?”

When he nodded Debbie thanked them both then volunteered herself. “We’ve all been just kind of sleeping on the ground so I’m going to build some beds for the keep. Anyone want in on that?” Allison leaned forward and fist bumped her and Debbie turned to me, John, and Steve. “That leaves you three to work out the plumbing situation, try and play nice.”

Jeri cleared her throat and stopped Debbie before she could continue. “Hunter and I will be moving into our tree house, you can skip the beds for us.” I overheard the comment and chimed in too. “My place ain’t done yet, but same here.”

Debbie shrugged in response. “I don’t know that I could make enough beds for all of us anyway. I just want some kind of furniture except pine boughs on the floor so we get a better deal on the upgrades. Everything needs to be finished before we break for food remember, and on that note I’m gonna get to work.”

The group broke up as people went off to assigned tasks, and I was left standing there with John and Steve. He gave me a half hearted grin. “Don’t suppose I could talk you into digging a trench clear out to the lake while I did all the install work up here?”

“And let me take away all your fun? We do the install together and then split the trench three ways?”

“Sounds fair. The wall of the cave comes right down to solid rock, Jack, we’re not going to be able to run the pipe in underneath the floor. We reinforced the walls too with that free upgrade so I reckon we don’t have a choice but run it through the doorway.”

“Not quite. I’ve got a drill and a masonry bit. Reinforcing the wall turned that mud mortar we made into something like concrete. I bet I can still cut a hole right through it and run the line in down low near the base of the wall but away from the door. We plant a couple bushes in front or lay in a flowerbed type thing to raise ground level up enough to cover where the line goes in and no one will know its there to cut it. You run it through the doorway and it’ll be vulnerable.”

“That actually makes sense. I’m okay with it. What you wanna do with the line once it’s inside?”

“I’m not sure, hadn’t really thought that far ahead.”

Steve surprised us both when he chimed in. “We need a place for the water to go after we use it. It’s more like a garden hose than real plumbing if there’s not a return system to the sewer.”

“There ain’t a sewer system though, and we’d need a shit ton of work to pipe it back to the river or even put in a septic tank.”

“We could put in a cesspool easy enough, Jack. No need to go all fancy as long as we’re talking about gray water and not an actual toilet.”

“Yeah, I guess that would work. Okay one guy to cut holes in the wall, one in and one out. Somebody to make the clay out pipe and maybe a basin and fixtures for the inside. Another guy digs out a cesspool. Whoever’s done first kicks down to help the next guy, until eventually all three of us dig the trench to bury the line. That work?”

They agreed that it did. Steve borrowed my full size shovel and started digging a few feet away for the eventual cesspool. John went down by the lake to start harvesting clay while I went back up to grab the battery for my drill. I finished first by a good margin and went ahead and fed the hose through the hole in the wall. Rather than immediately bouncing over to help Steve, since I already had my drill out I drilled out fittings for the door and popped the new lock in real quick.

Steve had already gotten his hole pretty deep, and I borrowed his and John’s e-tool and started to widen it out while he kept working on depth. After an hour or so John came back up with a couple buckets of clay and Steve and I had traded shovels and positions a couple of times. We were happy enough to give digging a rest for a little bit and play in the mud instead. It turns out we had a bit of a quality control issue when we tried for a two inch sewer pipe. Smaller diameter stuff was hard to keep consistent enough we could put sections of the pipe together, so we ended up using a chunk of firewood as a form that was probably closer to 4 or 5 inches across. This meant I had to go back and recut a bigger hole into the wall but eventually we had several feet of pipe and a basin ready to fire and Steve and I covered them in the spoil from the cesspit while John got a fire going on top of it all.

I started digging our trench to bury the line while Steve and John went to cut some limbs to make a stand for the basin. One of them would come back and spell me on the shovel now and then until the woodworking was done, and then all three of us started digging in earnest. Every once in a while someone would take a break to go feed the fire over the clay, but we stayed working pretty steady.

Debbie and Allison came up to the keep dragging some trimmed logs they were planning on turning into furniture and I was super impressed at the number of trees they’d managed to take down until I remembered her new chainsaws. Having access to modern tools was having a huge impact on our productivity levels. We were still burying the water line the old fashioned way however. I’d talked it over with John and our best guess was the frost line wouldn’t get down below 3 or 4 inches if there were actual seasons here. Since the whole bug thing he’d explained to me, I wasn’t taking anything for granted. Burying it that deep ought to keep water from freezing in the line if the temperature dropped. The last couple of feet up to the water’s edge had to remain exposed because the side of the lake was pretty much solid rock, but I angled the last couple feet of trench so once the grass grew back over it, nobody should be able to tell where the line led unless they did a ton of digging. It wasn’t a perfect solution but neither of us could think of anything else. We were still waiting on the pottery to finish cooking and I walked back up to the keep to give the girls a hand, while John and Steve went to check on the folks working on the showers.

When I walked in the front door of the keep the conversation cut off abruptly and I got the impression I’d been the subject of their conversation before I arrived. I tried not to be too paranoid about it as I looked at Allison and Debbie.

“What’s up, ladies. We have to wait on some pottery so John, Steve, and I are taking a break. Ya’ll need any help?”

Allison smirked at me and said, “I think Debbie wants some wood, Jack.” but Debbie smacked her shoulder and I pretended like I hadn’t heard anything. Instead I checked out what they’d already built while Debbie explained.

“We’re making them like cots. These long pieces are joined into a frame on each side to make a rectangle like that one. We’ve got the stuff to make a couple more of them, but the mattress part is giving us problems.”

Allison held up a length of the manila rope we’d traded for. “We were gonna lace this back and forth between the long parts like a patio chair. Way more give to it than just making the bed out of logs, and a whole lot better than sleeping on the ground.”

I nodded at them both. “Sounds good, what’s the hold up?”

Debbie sighed, and Allison threw the piece of rope on the ground before answering. “We tried the first and its way more rope than we figured. We measured the space between the logs and there was plenty before we started.”

Debbie sighed and picked up an end of the rope and wrapped it around the log. “We didn’t account for how much space it would take to actually wrap around the outside on each turn. We cut extra just in case but the rope pieces aren’t long enough for that. Now we either need to try and braid the rope back together or recut the logs for the frame and make the mattresses smaller.”

“That’s cause you didn’t have a man in here helping ya’ll build this. We’ve got something you don’t.” I got a couple of death stares and I slowly started backing towards the door. “I was talking about power tools. I’ve got a drill you can borrow. Put a hole in the frame and pull the rope through, cuts the rope used on each turn in half. Put in the hole at an angle instead of straight through the log and you’ll save even more. If you left some slack into the first measurement it might still work.”

Debbie popped to her feet as I hit the door and she chased me laughing back towards where I’d left my battery charger. She wrapped me up as I got there but it turned into a hug instead of a wrestling match and a few seconds later she stepped back.

“You’re still kind of an ass, Jack.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

I gave her the drill and went back over to where we’d fired the pottery. The fire was still going strong, but Hunter and Jeri were digging up the stuff they had been working on. They’d put theirs in at roughly the same time as us, and it didn’t seem like it had gone long enough.

“Hey, guys. You think that stuff is done cooking already?”

Jeri kept on with what she was doing but Hunter broke off and came over and bumped fists with me. “Told you I picked up some information on kilns and stuff, man. One of the guys I’d hung out with before in the village used to teach art down at the county annex. I picked his brain and learned all about pottery.”

He made an expansive gesture that included the places we’d been firing clay since we had built the first outdoor kiln. “This stuff is called racoon pottery. There was a chick called Popo Angie who used to make it by burning horse shit and it sold for big bucks. Apparently burning different stuff in the fire changes the color of the clay.”

“Interesting, but not exactly useful, Hunter.”

“I’m not finished, man. He also said it doesn’t need to go more than an hour or two. Apparently it's the temperature and not the time that does the trick. You add ground up minerals to the clay to get different kinds of ceramics, and each needs a different temperature. As long as it’s a nice hot fire, this raccoon stuff ought to be done in an hour or so. We’d have to get it hotter if we added minerals, probably.”

“So you’re saying my stuff is done too?”

When he told me it was I kicked some of the logs apart on my fire so it could start going out and walked back towards the shower to talk to John and Steve. Helen and Kenny had done good work so far. Instead of building a traditional room around the shower, they’d put up a series of privacy walls instead. The cliff was along one side, with two panels coming out from it at right angles bracketing the shower itself. There was a good sized gap and then a third panel across the front wide enough to obscure any view, with the bottom of the panel up off the ground so that the shower could continue to drain as normal.

“Ya’ll look about done.”

John shook his head at me. “They’re still putting up benches, and Steve and I are coming up with towel racks.”

I nodded over at Kenny, “Hey, Kenny, you mind taking the towel racks back over? These guys ditched out on our project before they were done.” I turned back to John. “Long story but the pottery is ready.”

I explained what Hunter had told me as we headed back to assemble the plumbing. Steve suggested we start experimenting with minerals, but we put him off until we’d finished the current task. I borrowed Debbie’s chainsaw and started cutting stakes to reinforce the walls of the cesspool and put a roof on it, while John and Steve put together the sink and ran the piping. By the time I finished reburying the proto-sewer system everyone was congregating back in front of the keep. I was the last one working and took a little shit from everyone about being inefficient. Nobody really suggested it, but instead of starting the midday meal like we’d planned a tour of improvements started out.

The racks in the smokehouse weren’t anything too fancy, but they’d set up an open bottomed manifold that spread the smoke evenly around the chamber as it came into the room. It looked like it would help the meat cook more evenly which would really cut down on the number of times we’d have to step in and move stuff around while it cooked. I took the opportunity to unload the large bag of salt I’d purchased into the corner, and couldn’t help but grin when Debbie and John both followed suit. We’d definitely have plenty to last for a while now and I made a mental note to try and do a better job of coordinating purchases for the group in the future.

The benches at the shower facility were pretty rough, but they seemed sturdy and they weren’t supposed to be for seating anyway. Most of the folks seemed impressed by the privacy screens, apparently they’d felt rushed before, and I had a feeling it was going to be harder to get a spot in the showers than it already had been. We all trooped back to the keep and while some of the others were playing with the new sink, I laid down in one of the new beds. It wasn’t exactly memory foam, but it was pretty comfortable compared to anything else I’d tried since coming here. A part of me regretted telling them I didn’t need a bed because I didn’t think I’d be able to match this. Then I realized I could just shamelessly copy their design and felt better about my decision. I got up as a couple of the others tried the beds out, and I could see some conflict coming from 4 beds among 7 people. We could always make more beds for those who hadn’t opted out, or maybe have the others take turns, but it seemed like I should bring up the issue to Debbie when we had a minute.

Debbie was the first to stop ooohing and aaahing over the changes and she walked to the center of the room and called out to us.

“I think it’s time to call it good. If you guys want to do a pot luck again, I’ll read through the menus and we can vote on upgrades and how much to kick in while we eat.”

The meal was soup again, it was the easiest way to feed a group this size. I was a little disappointed nobody made biscuits this time, but I didn’t blame them for saving the good stuff. I was kicking in on the meal but I didn’t exactly donate from the top shelf either. Debbie was staring off into space the entire time, I’m pretty sure she was reading menus but it looked odd to see her staring off into nothing and occasionally mumbling to herself. By the time we started eating she’d come back to herself and dished up her own bowl while everybody waited to see what she’d learned. Debbie took a spoonful, blew on it to cool it, then took in a slow bite and looked up to see us all staring at her. She chuckled and dropped the spoon back into the bowl.

“You guys seem impatient for something.” She shifted her spoon around in the bowl a little before she dropped the act and smirked at us. “The upgrades we did for the buildings really paid off. First off, you can buy improvement points with XP tokens at a 1 to 10 rate.”

“Sounds pretty cheap then.”

“Other way around, 1 improvement point for 10 XP. Level 1 improvements are 300 points, level 2 doubles that, and level 3 jumps up to a 1000. We haven’t unlocked any level 4 yet, but I assume they cost more. The keep racks up 2 points a day, so we’ve only got 16 points so far.”

Steve did the math in his head and volunteered to the group, “We will need 2840 XP tokens to purchase a single upgrade to the keep.”

Debbie nodded at him. “I know it sounds like a lot, but the upgrades are all kind of amazing. I’ve got 5,000 XP I’m willing to put into community buildings. How much can everyone else put in?”

Jeri shook her head. “I literally spent almost everything at the store. I’ve got 20 tokens you can have.”

Hunter patted her shoulder. “I kept some back, I’ll go a thousand.”

Kenny put in 340 which kind of surprised me, Helen and Sam were good for 50 each. Steve gave a hundred, and Allison matched Debbie at 500. John had apparently squared away more than he’d let on because he floored everyone when he doubled that at 1,000. I squirmed a little in my seat because I was the last to go.

“What upgrades are we talking about buying? I kind of want to know where my money’s going before I donate.”

“Awww, there’s that inner asshole talking again. I was starting to miss it, Jack. We’ll vote on which upgrades we actually buy, but the options are through the roof. Just pick a number Jack so we know what’s worth discussing. If you decide to donate more later I certainly won’t complain.”

I felt bad for quibbling and in a show of trusting Debbie’s judgement I shrugged. “If that’s what you think, then I’ll match John with 1000. Do the tokens have numbers on them or what? I’ve never really checked them out and I’m not sure how this works.”

Debbie's eyes unfocused for a second before she shook her head at me.

“No worries, when you made the verbal commitment control of the tokens went to me. I can spend everyone’s now, my available total on the menu jumped way up.”

Steve asked, “Is it 3072 improvement points?” When she nodded yes he looked satisfied, “The math checks out, she has everyone’s donation already.”

“Okay, I’m not sure the best way to do this because there are a ton of menus, but I’ll read off some of the obvious options and if anyone has a suggestion I can look through there and see if it’s available. Keep first. We bought upgraded walls already, but we can bump those up to Level 2. Apparently we managed to unlock functional plumbing at level 1 and can get complete plumbing at level 2 or spring for luxurious plumbing at level 3. The furniture did the same thing, we’ve got creature comforts at level 2 or sybarite at level 3. The locks count as basic security at level 1, and opens up security at level 2 or enhanced security at level 3. There’s also a ton of level 1 stuff we can get, basic storage, climate control, lighting, all kinds of stuff.”

Everyone started debating what we should get first, and after a while it kind of polarized between two camps. Some of us wanted to buy as many level 1’s as possible just to see what they were like and get a baseline, while the others wanted to focus in on maxing out what they saw as important. It would have been easier to agree if we knew exactly what each of the upgrades would entail, but all we got was the names. Allison finally got everyone’s attention and presented her idea.

“We need to decide how much of the total goes into each building before we buy anything. I don’t want to trick out the keep and leave the other two hanging.”

That started a whole new debate but it was over fairly quickly. Everyone agreed we spent more time in the keep and it would get 2,000 points while we’d split the last thousand between the smokehouse and the shower. Now that we had a price point, everyone started arguing their original point again until Debbie stood up and called us out on it.

“This is taking forever, and we agreed to vote anyway. Simple majority rules, and since I’m the boss I’ll call out the stuff in the order I prefer. Raise your hand if you want to spend a thousand points on luxurious plumbing.”

All of the women immediately raised their hand and so did Steve, it looked like a stalemate until Jeri threw an elbow into Hunter’s ribs and his hand went up to. Debbie nodded at the group and smiled.

“Done then, I’ll buy that. A thousand points left, so I think a couple of the cheaper options. We’ve only got so much oil for the lamps, so who thinks we should go lights?”

It was a clearer majority this time and Debbie didn’t even bother making a count. “Passed, how about security level 2?”

Debbie, Sam, and I were the only ones to put our hands up. I wanted to try and sell the idea but Debbie cut me off before I could get started. “Next idea, how many people want extra storage?”

Debbie and John were the only votes. She hit me with a questioning look and I shrugged at her. I liked Debbie but I wasn’t Hunter. I’d vote with the big head not the little one. She gave me a half nod and went on. “How about creature comforts?”

This time the vote actually deadlocked. I thought she’d open it up for a debate and revote, but she kept moving down her mental list. “That’s out, how about climate control?”

That squeaked by on a single vote and Debbie sighed. “We’ve got enough left for a single level 1, so let me read off a couple more options. There is a mana center, cooking station, or map room. I’ve got no clue what any of those are so don’t ask. Anybody have a preference?”

Steve immediately called for a cooking station before I could suggest the map room, and Debbie put it to a vote. The cooking station passed by a slim margin and I had a feeling people were voting for it just to get on with things. Debbie pulled up the menus for the smokehouse though and temperature control level 2 passed unanimously. We had enough left for two level 1’s or a single level 2 on the shower facility though and there things got interesting again.

“We can get water pressure level 1, durability level 1, expansion level 1, or something called bathing facility level 2.”

I liked the idea of water pressure and durability instead of going with the unknown but there was quite a bit of speculation about what the other two options were. I was half afraid the expansion would just make the privacy walls bigger, but most of the others seemed to think it would give a second shower head. In the end everybody voted for the bathing facility level 2. It seemed like we had a majority of risk takers in our group. I smiled at the thought of upgrading the showers as a bigger risk than walking into a forest of monsters like we all did every single day.

Debbie spent the points and waved at everyone. “The upgrades are immediate. Let’s all go take a look around, and except for whoever’s on watch here at the livestock pen, the rest of the day is yours. Don’t forget if you’ve got watch tonight.”