《Kingdom's Gates》Chapter Nine
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"One minute," yelling up at Alice so she can hear him, Jason turns to the map again.
Jason muse for a moment, "Will we have enough food for them?"
"You can create a silo and warehouse. A mill can be built when you build a farmer's hut to grow food on your land. I can add any food I find within your area of control for clearing the land to your pantry for a cost. I can destroy houses that have been abandoned and can no longer have people in them for food, goods, and resources that they left behind. Currently, there are three homes and a trailer in the area we control. One is Patrick's home and their building and Hendrick's place. There is one house that has a human in it with several large creatures in the area. The other is a trailer that has some creatures that walking around it. There is one human there hiding in a car near the road." Grace said.
"That Aunt Kitty. Are the creatures hostile?"
"There are a few creatures near the human, but the human and the creatures show no damage."
"Might be her cats. She has about twenty-one cats that she has rescued and spayed or neutered over the years." Aunt Kitty is not called Kitty because of her love of cats but because Kit Wells is her name. She and her husband moved here about forty years ago, bought forty acres next door, and built a house. Shortly after, her husband dies from a heart attack, leaving her alone in a new house and enough income to live a few lifetimes. She was fifty when he died. Now she is in her ninety and has always rescued cats and found a home for them. Three kids in the town mow her lawn and get her groceries. There have been a few times he hauled bags of cat food to her house and put them into her shed. The last load was about three days ago. She bought enough to feed her twenty-something cats for three months.
"I need to check on her when I go get Alice's sister."
Thinking about the trailer. The Koby brothers live there. They are a couple of potheads that are in their mid-twenties that live on their parent's income. They are usually too stone to leave the trailer. Their parents rent the trailer from the Hendricks to keep their boys out of trouble in town up north. They bring food on the weekend to keep them in stock up. Someone in town supplies them with marijuana to keep them happy. A maid comes in once a week to clean the trailer. They don't live at home because their father is embarrassed and doesn't want the big boys in the small town to know about their habits, considering everyone knows about them. The only one I know that has a car is Jenny, the maid that cleans the trailer. She is twenty-one and works three part-time jobs. She is plain-looking and slender with dirty blond shoulder-length hair. He thinks she has brown eyes, not sure because of her large glasses. Alice told him that she was saving up money to buy the old Henry place in the small town a few miles away.
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"We will ask Keith about absorbing his place later, and we leave Hendrick's Ranch for now, but if they cause us any problems, I will destroy it. There are a few abandoned houses in the area. You can destroy them. We don't need anyone holing up in those houses." he tells Grace.
"I will have to destroy houses and stone works to build more on the fort. If I do, you can not get the food goods or items from the building unless you pay for them to be gathered or gather them yourself. There is some rock cliff about a half-mile away. If you build a quarry and summon ten men at the quarry. I can build more buildings in the future when you hit Tier five, level one on the kingdom. I can start making stone houses and walls. I can absorb rock and wood from the land if you expand your domain."
"We hold off for now. Is there power and water in the building?"
"No. But I can add hot and cold water using magic stones and magic lights that use beast cores to power. I can add bathrooms with showers and tubs for three thousand points and place a water tower on the roof. You will need to fill it." Grace responds.
Jason nods his head, "go ahead and add those. I will use windmills to fill the tank on the tower in the future." There are several old windmills in the area. That can fill water tanks for cattle and a junkyard outside of Fulton that has some old windmills.
Looking over the list. "Add a greenhouse large on the north wall and a horse corral. I see you have chicken and rabbit pens on your list. What do they do? I can always build them by hand. It would be easier for me to make them. I mean, I can save five hundred points."
"The animal pens allow breeding animals to grow to full size in a month. Chicken eggs that can sit in the incubator will hatch in a few days and grow to full size in a week. Rabbits that are bred have babies in a week and are fully grown in a month. The inferior hay I have harvested from the field in your domain can feed your animals for a few months. You will have to harvest the field by hand in the future since I planted new hayseed that will grow fast within your domain or pay a fee for me to harvest. I see you have goats, cattle, and horses. I can build a pen for each type of animal for breeding and growing. A foal or calf will be born in a month and fully grown in three months. Goat and sheep can be born in two weeks and fully grown in a month. Cost is three thousand points each building."
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"Okay, go ahead and pay for them and a hog pen. Can you summon pigs? And can you change out the building they are in or move the animals without harming them into their new pens?."
"That will be no problem. I can temporarily move them to their pens, but you will have to do the work after that. Either summon farmers or have the locals work for you."
Jason looks over at the keep. "Add a Blacksmith, a Bowmaker at first level, and what is this 'Shop' on this page."
"That will be three thousand for each for the building, and that is the Gate Shop so you can spend the money you have looted."
"Go ahead and add that for ten thousand KP. See if everyone likes it or not." Jason said, shrugging his shoulder and looking over the list. "How long does the food in a greenhouse grow? This is august, so in a few months, it will be hard to grow plants. We may have to heat the greenhouse. Shit! We going need wood for heating the houses."
The greenhouse growth rate is one day for each week a plant is usually grown and produced, so about a week to two weeks, and some plants will take three weeks. The greenhouse is heated or cooled based on the weather. A farmer is needed, or someone needs to tend to the greenhouse daily. I can plant woods in the domain at 1 KP each or 2KP in your area of control, thus creating a small forest."
"I think Darla would love that greenhouse. She has a large garden behind her house and gripes about not having a greenhouse. Keith and Darla have been thinking about going professional on a couple of greenhouses. I know Keith has been talking to the bank to get a loan. Go ahead in add two hundred KP of woods to the northeast of the domain on the east side. I need the domain to grow the woods that can protect small animals and firewood and lumber.
What is an Armory, and what does it do?"
"It gears your warriors in starter armor and shield. There are simple spears and short swords inside. When you have a blacksmith working, you can hire an armorsmith to make armor or a weaponsmith to upgrade or repair weapons at a rate of ten a day per level of the blacksmith shop."
"Build an Armory next to the barracks.
How long does it take our constructs to appear?"
"It will take an hour to summon one. They will be wearing basic padded linen armor that will be in the armory, and the basic weapons will be on them. If you wish arrows beyond the basic that is provided, they can be made by you, but you will have to hire a Fletcher or a bower to make bows."
"Tomorrow, I will think about armor and other weapons to make, but first, we need other items we can take from empty houses. Are there any books for crafting?" Jason ask.
"Armory is three thousand points. When you have reached tier three on your settlement, you can create a crafting hall that will summon a construct that teaches people how to craft different items. They can only teach basic crafting, but they can research a subject or items. Each level of the Crafting hall can summon more craftsmen you get the more different researcher." Grace said.
"Go ahead and finish what's in the building queue. I will deal with the rest when I return." Jason turns and starts to leave the room.
"What is the name of your Kingdom?" Grace asks.
Turning around, his eyes fell upon a picture of him and Chet. They were kneeling in front of a hummer in the picture sitting on the desk. Thinking about all the times he was with Chet and the first true friend he ever had in his life. "Fort Cheton. After my friend and Alice's son."
"I will print the name of 'Fort Cheton above the gate into your kingdom."
Nodding his head, he turns and heads up and finds out what Alice wants him to see.
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