Later in the morning than I expected, I came awake and stood before the dusty ashes of last night’s fire. I pull the still fish out of my inventory and eat pieces of it. Apparently things are in stasis in inventory, everything stays just as it is. That’s going to be a delightful place to store cold beer. I stretch and walk groggily towards the river to wash my hands. As I wash my hands, I decide to take off my armor and wash all of myself and my clothes. I used shape to clean and patch up the gear that I don’t’ want to immerse in water.

While I floated lazily in the river, I looked at the armor and the oak trees around us and thought. I understood the basics, and Advanced shaping had handled carburizing the mild steel in to good carbon steel. I bet I can tan the badger bear hide, it’s big enough to give us all a decent starter set of armor. I crawl onto a rock to dry in the sun and think about the steps involved, De fleshing drying salting, soaking in an extract of Tannin from the oak bark for days, and then slowly working a slurry of the fatty brain tissue deeply into the leather to make it soft and supple. I think I can do it faster than by hand with shaping, but when I come to the end of that pondering, the rock is still warm, the sun is still bright and I’m still not fully dry.

Instead of getting up, I pull up the Local Political Administration Interface, and dig into it, trying to figure out how to upgrade the grove into a settlement. Also trying to puzzle out what’s involved in increasing the area we can claim and protect. The first comes easy and the messages being to appear.

Hopping up from the stone in my excitement, I tugged on my clothes, and examined the Gem closely.

That was really cool, but I was hoping for a worker golem spawning shrine, or a hut of tiny hardworking elves…Long term A market would be a big draw. I wasn’t sure how a market would be enchanted, but we’d have to see.

I went back to my quest logs, to the tutorial tab to see If the tutorial had anything to say about settlements, it’d been awfully quiet since the first day.

YES no>

Well crap, looks like I took that message separating a bit too seriously. First, I took a moment of silence for all the easy CP I’d missed out on. Next, I thought about how to make thinks work how I wanted, as opposed to just how I thought I wanted it.

I concentrated on a quest accept dialog that slid down from the top, 50% opacity, red blinking text, for all quest accept messages. It slid down, covering the Navigation hud, and there was my text blinking for the Starting a Settlement Quest. Next just to be sure, I put all quest related cancel skip and “are you sure” messages there too.

Nothing. I looked and there was a blinking 1 on my quest message bubble. Not what I wanted. I concentrated some more, making active quest prompts also go to the slide menu, non blinking green text. I put a max of 3 then added a scroll bar, so it wouldn’t get out of control and block too much of my vision.

Down it slid, green text

YES no.”>

I clicked yes. Victory was mine!

Again with the green , now the altar was pulsing with light and had a giant yellow exclamation mark over it.

I walked over and touched the altar.

The interface had a series of options down the side, a collapsed list under “Religious” and an expanded list under “Settlement”, place a building was blinking. I opened that and selected the trading hall, and a overhead map of the settlement appeared in green with a red box blinking. Excellent I was able to place the building via the interface! I mentally moved the box around. Thought a moment, and slid it as far south as I could. To the edge and past, half in half out of the safe area. Perfect!

”> I selected yes,

Yes, duh.

Suddenly I heard the sound of saws and hammering past the trees to the South.

I checked out the gem.

Awesome, now, how much is 20 BP worth, and most importantly how do I get more?

I holler at Yamina on Party chat [“You up Yamina?”]. I hear a squeak from the tree branches above me, and in a tiny yet epically grumpy voice of freshly awoken teenagers everywhere. “I am now.” Comes from the branches above me.

“Sorry to wake you Yamina, but I need your help with something system related and you’re the expert here.”

Yamina floated out of the branches, her wings not actually moving, and somehow actually dragging her feet as she flew over to land sitting sleepily on my shoulder.

“What”

“I just got a gem for 20 Building Points, in the quest interface. How much is that and how do I get more.”

We’ll more is easy, as the local admin, mayor probably, you’ll get quests related to the settlement. The rewards are settlement related, like magic building points to help you build buildings faster blueprint, goods, etc.. This isn’t going to come as a surprise, but buildings will cost points too. You can spend BP, building points to buy it, or you can spend personal or settlement CP, or you can physically work on the building to generate them generating BP immediately deducted from the total.”

“What are Settlement CP?”

“You can put a tax on all CP generated in the settlement, you can get them as quest rewards, and some structures generate them automatically, like a library. They help you advance the settlement, buildings trade routes Settlement wide shared perks stuff like that.”

“Dude, if I didn’t want a library before, and I did, I really want one now.” I said standing up and pacing back and for, my voice cracking with excitement.

“Start collecting books, recruit a librarian, and see if you can get a blueprint”.

“How much does a basic house cost to build?”

Yawning and stretching in the most theatrical way possible, she replied “50 points…”

Grumbling I looked at the build interface

Basic House

50 BP

Basic Blacksmith shop

75 BP

Basic Fishing Shack

50 BP

Basic Townhall

100 BP

Basic House + Shop

60 BP

Basic General Goods Shop

100 BP

Basic Tavern + Rogues Guild : Requires Brewery

100 BP

Basic Construction Hall : Requires Wood yard or Masons lot.

100 BP

Advanced Water Powered multipurpose Mill : required Construction Hall, access to moving water source.

500 BP

Basic Dam

20 BP

Basic Sluiceway

20 BP

Primitive Shack

20 LP

Primitive Lean to

10 LP

I wrinkled my brow and leaned forward, “What’s the Difference between BP and LP?”

Sighing tiredly, and slumping against my neck, she said “LP are labor points, you can’t use building points to make a primitive shelter, only your physical labor, so the points are just a guide for difficulty. You can Build up LP ahead of time, by preparing materials, LP convert directly to BP when building a basic or higher structure. For basic and above structures you can just ignore LP and treat them as BP.”

“Huh, okay go washup, and lets to look at the market I built meet me at the south border” I strode of briskly, and Yamina floated slowly, the wings on one side still and the other pair waving lazily, having nothing to do with her actual motion. I guess Devas actually ARE magi.

I made my way to the south border, thinking about Shape and the tools we’d need, and how to build without them until we had a bigger workforce. I pulled out some branches and smoothed them into 6 wooden splitting wedges, and pulled a large branch and formed into a wooden Pry bar and another into a large two-handed mallet. I pulled out branches the size of my thumb and started making them into trenails, or “Tree Nails”, what we’d call big wooden pegs. The trenails are about the diameter of my thumb, and a foot long. As I walk along, I started looking for the top of a dead or really poorly off Oak tree, to convert into lumber, that is well outside out settlement. Spotting in the distance, I marked it on my map for later.

When I arrived at the empty market, I saw that my intent had worked wonderfully in adapting the market to our needs. It was a row of wooden market stalls. Along one side, right on the edge of the safe zone, literally touching the edge while safely inside, were a line of 6 simple wooden booths About 10X20, wide side to the front. Each booth had walls, and a counter that closed up when not in use. Across from that were 6 more identical booths, completely outside the safe zone. Each booth was painted a different color for recognition. It felt like a tiny renaissance fair. Between them were a set of tables and benches, and at the nearest end to me, was an entrance with a wooden sign over it “Welcome to the Danuholms Market” and a large brass bell, that said “Ring bell for service” in a half dozen languages and an actual cartoon of someone ringing the bell with the attached clapper. And people coming to them holding round cartoon bags of loot in each hand.

I opened the closest stall, and saw an exit at the back, Lockable, shelves for storage, and small desk for work and a wooden pair of bunks at the back. Next to the bed was a large locking cabinet. Under the counter was a small wooden chest. On a whim I went ahead and assigned the black building to Fannon and Rhuad, and Named it “Blacksmiths Shop” , next was a blue one I assigned to Yamina and myself, titling it “Church of Danu Store”, both inside the safe area.

We had enough housing for all of us, and shops for the trade I hoped to get going with the nearby villages. Excessive, sure, but I wanted to get every drop out of that free building. I wandered into the blue shop, and touched the chest,

.

NICE, I’ll have to see about doing that. For now, I selected yes.

Actually, that sounded like a great idea. I selected yes, and assigned Yamina as my deputy.

I sent a party message to Yamina, [“Please pick todays quota of apples and inventory them before you head down here, I want to test something. Mark them public in your inventory.”]

The response I got was mostly a sleepy noise that sounded vaguely like “sure, sure”.

I looked at the, let’s call them picnic tables, down the center, and sat myself down at one. First, I processed all my iron into medium carbon steel. Then a few I changed to high carbon steel, and set to work. I moved all the ingots to an area I marked public, and the left-over fish. Then I stripped all the bark off the oak branches I had in my inventory, wishing I’d saved the everything I’d stripped off in the past, instead of dropping it as waste. Next, I dehaired the Badgerbear hide with shape, which took a lot longer than I expected. After a rest I got the hide dehaired. I should probably soak it in wood ash lye next time, the hair will come out easier. Then using shape extracted the tannins from the bark and infused the leather with the tannins. I stretched the leather out flesh side up, and the worked the leather to soften it some, and pulled the brains out of the skull, pureed it, and began to work it into the hide. The fats and the stretching making it softer still. Now all I needed was to smoke the hide and it would be finished. Quick work with the fire starter and smoking was done using shape.

About then Yamina arrived, looking human, or Devas, and settled on the table before me

I addressed her “Would you please go touch the big cabinet and the chest under the counter in the blue market stall over there? Tell me what popups you get and if it asks to bind say yes.”

I stood up, inventoried the Badgerbear hide for later, and followed her.

Yamina spoke up “I got the messages and bound my inventory. Looks like it has some fish and stuff in it already.”

“Even better” I said reaching over to touched the chest. There it was, her inventory, my inventory, and shop inventory. I closed it and opened my inventory hoping to see Yamina’s and the shops inventory there, but just mine and the shop showed. A stack of 25 Blessed apples appeared in my pubic area all on its own. So Yamina could move things via the store into my storage as well if she was at the chest.. Enchanted Market Indeed. Instant delivery of goods. I had pictures of buying agents in cities far away dropping goods directly in. What a logistics advantage.

“Hah!” shouted Yamina “That’s going to be super handy, we can even use it to pass messages if we need to for some reason.”

“I agree totally, it’s not as exploitable as I hoped, but that will definitely make the shop easier to manage.” I assigned Fannon and Thorbjorn to be able to run our shop in our absence. I set up remote administration via the Political Interface and stood up. “Let’s go see what we can do to that dead oak tree over there.”

We wandered over, and I took a wedge out of it Facing the direction t where I wanted the tree to fall, just as you would do with an axe. Then I took a wedge out slightly above the first on the back side. The Tree hinged perfectly and dropped about where I wanted it. I started de-limbing the main trunk, and shaping it into a perfect cartoon log. I then set about breaking the tree down into small and smaller limbs, straighten as I went, till they were smaller in diameter than my thumb. I tried stashing the whole tree, every branch into my inventory; I checked and my mana regen was around 1 per second, so I was probably approaching my limit. I wondered aloud “I wonder why it’s only hitting my Mana, and not my stamina?”

Yamina answered me to my surprise. She waved me inside the safe zone completely and continued. “It’s another benefit to Peak Me, one mom couldn’t mention, anytime your physical stats, including stamina are pulled below peak, it starts working to bring back up. Your Stamina Regen and Health regen will get really powerful as you level. Another reason mom directed you towards it. It was a Major Boon after all. Those can be powerful, it’s memory enhancement will keep going up as you level too. You never had mana when you chose it, so mana regen is not boosted, at least for now. But it’s still a huge stealth benefit”.

“Note to self, always take you moms Boon and Perk advice, even if it’s not obvious why, she knows her shit.”

“Well duh, who do you think made the system? And the Rules for that matter. Other parental gods like the titans helped, but most of them are gone now. Just a few of the originals remain, like All Father, and Chronos, but most of the Mother and Father goddesses out there now, are children of the originals who stepped up when their parents died, moved on to what’s next, or just wandered away. You’d be surprised how often that last happens, apparently raising gods isn’t always a fulfilling experience. Who Knew?!?? Turns out bad especially for the Angry and Evil parental gods. If you’re an asshole, so are your kids, or at least angry.”

“Iblis, Father of all the judeao/chrisitian/islamic devils and daemons peaced out after like a couple hundred years, Satan and Shaitan share that gig now, and if you think two brothers both being fathers of all daemons and devilkind is peaceful, you’ve got another thing coming. They are STILL arguing each claiming the other one is the Mom. Even funnier, they reproduce by budding. Best part is, both of them think they out smarted their father and won a battle of wits to get the jobs. “

“Last I heard, Iblis was in Ibiza, roleplaying as a rich gorgeous playboy, partying up and flying to other fashion pits on a whim. Some of them aren’t even in this universe. You ask me, Iblis is the -clear- winner. Any time he gets really bored, he stirs stuff up for his sons and leaves them to deal with it. Speaking of which, whatever you do, -don’t- get on his bad side. His taste in practical Jokes is -really- low, I mean like, ‘He retroactively created Syphillis, with historical and archeological backing, and gave it to Columbus and his crews before they left the indies’, low. He still laughs about that shit and complains about Asclepius and Hygeia allowing penicillin to be invented and ruining half his fun… If you think that’s not part of why he roll-plays as a super-hot playboy, fucking his way through generations of shallow men, women and everything else, you are clearly underestimating him. -Do- -not- -cross- -him-, if you can avoid it. If you have to cross him, be suuuuuuuper polite and respectful. Now that I think about it. That’s probably a good idea for all the gods. Old or young. But Double for Iblis.”

“Jesus, that’s awful.” I said in shock.

“Jesus isn’t so bad, once you get past the multiple personality thing, sometimes he’s 3, sometimes he’s 1, sometimes he’s not even himself but some kind of intellectual ideal. It’s weird, but he’s basically a good dude. He tends to stick to where his catholic worshipers are, their expectations of him as a separate person keeps him separated. He really likes Craft beer and Pub food; you’d probably get along great.”

“Speaking of schizoid, you swapping from a teen ager, to an ancient all-knowing goddess is a little weird too. Especially when you whip out an info dump like that.”

“Part of the Iota of a sliver thing, the more of her knowledge I internalize and don’t have to depend on her, and the stronger I get, the more a separate being I become and the inverse happens at the same time. Mom likes self-reinforcing systems. Speaking of all knowing, Mom said last night to tell you to set a 1% tax on all earnings of all kinds, and assign Thorbjorn and Jimni to be city guards and go hunt monsters for meat and loot. Both us and the settlement get a piece, and those two can go grind levels and make the path between here and Mining Town safe for commerce. God that’s a stupid name, we should conquer it just to change the name and then give it back.”

I lean on the chest under the counter and set up the taxes as advised, and assign the city guards. I am a learning organism. Next, I head to see Fannon.

I approach the lean brunette, a few days of better food hasn’t helped her hungry greyhound look, but her energy seems to be improving. I explain what I’ve been doing all morning, and ask her where she wants her smithy, next to the river and the sand bar, or next to her booth in the Market?

“Why both, don’t you know, the main shop will be attached to the booth. If you aren’t here to supply iron and steel, I’ll have to set up a smelting yard over by the bar and build a charcoal pit out in the woods somewhere.” Fannon answered.

We talked about how the market booths also worked as housing. We decided together that the smithy was the next priority. We started dumping and hauling supplies to the black painted market booth. Then I drop the shop in the interface, and apply the BP crystals I had towards it.

I had an idea about LP and adaptive interfaces and dropped all my wood, excepting only a few branches, near her booth. Then we set too together, breaking it down with shape into standardized lumber. Last, n I went and made a large pile of assorted iron and steel ingots. Several hundred pounds of ingots all told, and dropped them by the booth.

We went and got stones from the cliffs, and made them all into regular sizes for a rapid foundation and floor. Inspired, at how easily and quickly shape could be used to make stone blocks, we made enough for the walls too. The walls would be made of large multi hundred-pound blocks. I even cut arch and keystones for all the windows and doors. We converted all the wood into lumber of the correct dimensions. I got everything a prepped as I could. I wanted to find some clay or slate for roofing, wood shingles might work, but I wanted to exploit this as hard as I could. I made sure everyone was added under the settlement tab, and then sent a party message to everyone asking if they saw any good stone for roofing.

Thorbjorn replied “We’ve seen plenty of limestone, but nothing suitable for roofing west of town across the river. Thanks for the quest by the way.”

“What Quest?!?” I squawked. I mean, I asked in a calm and mature manner.

“Right after you assigned us as guards, we got a quest to go kill lizards and save tortoises west of the river. It’s been really good hunting, and we’re piling up the corpses to bring back for food and leather.”

At the word tortoises, I turned and looked directly at Yamina, my eye brown doing its best Spock impersonation. “Yamina?” I asked drawing the a out long and rising in tone.

Way too nonchalantly, she answered “Oh yeah that, as the settlement leaders we can offer quests through the interface. Pretty much for anything we need. CP comes from a pool in the settlement interface, but since we’re mom’s holy capital, there’s bunch in there already, even though she doesn’t have as many worshipers here yet. All part of the package deal.”

I responded dryly “Quests for things like huge piles of prepared lumber and stones? For say a blacksmith shop”. Yamina winced hugely hunching her shoulders as it hit her.

“I’m sorry Bill, I didn’t think of that, we needed the meat and the tortoises needed help, so I just dashed it off.”

“Nah, it was a good idea, just share it next time. We’re team twisty minds remember? Together we are at least twice and twisty”. We need to focus on getting this settlement up and running on it’s own. Plus we need to get to that plateau eventually, and claim the territory. I suspect there is a temple of some kind up there as well, which keep the need to go look up near the top of the list. First, let’s set up a lot of auto quests, so we don’t have to be here to manage them full time.

I perched myself on the nearest stone block and dug into the settlement interfaces. I pulled everything back into my inventory except the stone I was sitting on. My mana and Stamina regen stopped, but as long as I sat still, that was okay. My knees felt weak, and my head was not as attached as it normally was, I was probably carrying several dozen tons in my inventory at the moment.

I set up a quest for Fannon and Rhuad to build the blacksmith shop and fill the shop with gear, Another for each of the buildings and assigned those to everyone including myself. I left the reward automatic on those. Then I set up quests to supply the materials for each of the buildings, and again, gave them to everyone. Then I went to the religious section set up the “Spread the Faith” quest for everyone as well. One for bringing Customers to the market. I added several quests for Yamina and I as Settlement leaders, to expand and improve the settlement in ambiguous ways, as well as specific ways like, adding a blacksmith shop and a religious center. Having run out of ideas at that point, I kicked it into max exploit mode.

I dropped all stone and prepared lumber, I split some of the excess lumber into 1” thick full building lengths boards to make a simple roof. I dropped the Blacksmith shop literally touching their booth on the map. Concentrated on blending them together, and poured in my shaping magic as well. I Dropped both of my building crystals for 30BP, hoping all my prelabor counted as Labor Points.

I told Yamina the only one there “Watch this shit, it’s gonna be epic, or it’s going to wreck me, one way or the other.”

She had time for her eyes to get big before the cacophony started.

My work It did count as LP/BP. A large stone blacksmith shop built itself before our eyes. All sawing and banging noises happening at warp speed. Yes, it totally hurt my ears. I kept my vision of the blacksmith shop strongly in mind and concentrated my shaper and concentration magic into the structure interface and the building itself. In moments it was done, just like I’d envisioned it.

“Hey man, you got any more of those… Building Gems” I said, rubbing my nose.

When we went into the shop, it was just as I’d envisioned it, a 250lb London pattern anvil on an oaken stump stand, Racks for tools on 3 of the walls and a classic English side draft forge out of stone and metal on the 4th wall. An excellent assortment of my favorite forging tools was arrayed there. Hiding my disappointment at not filling every rack with every tool I’d ever seen online , I looked to check my inventory. I’d tied my inventory to the Blue shop and the settlement earlier. Yep, Half the Badgerbear hide and all the ingots were gone making the large bellows. Hell the steel off the extra weapons was even gone, except for my spear and the armor I’d been wearing. I’d be amazed if this wasn’t the best forge and the best tool selection on the continent. Especially as most of the smiths as carried all their tools on their back to get here. I checked Fannon and Rhuads packs in my inventory and saw that they’d emptied too, Turning I saw a second work area, with all of their tools and their anvil as well.

Rhuad could work on his own stuff when he wasn’t helping his mother. There was even a small primitive forge like the Viking reenactors had with the big half round walls that cause it to look like a taco, focusing the heat and make it more fuel efficient. That would speed up his learning speed I bet. A complete mini shop for him. I turned to show Fannon all the tools I’d given her, including a complete hobbyist SCA armorers shop with all the special tooling. In one corner, I even saw what looked just like my old Beverly shear, Seeing my bead roller as well both devoid of paint or markings. I set my heart on making some simple rolling mills, one for bar stock and one for small plate, and maybe wire… someday. Drawing plates will have to do for now.

It was about then, that I noticed my Mana and Stamina were still not regenerating. I looked at my buff debuff area and saw a blue drop and a running pair of yellow feet, both in red circles and a diagonal line in the international “nope” symbol, thinking of all the steel and iron tools and blanks I had in my shops, one at the house and one at the ranch, I realized I must have concentrated and shaped hundreds of pounds of steel on the fly. It was about then that I realized that, the world was tilting sideway on me. Then something rushed up and smacked me on the side of my face. Wow, I don’t remember a limestone floor being quite so soft and comfortable. Ohhh, everything is fuzzy, and the edges are getting dark. I have just enough brain left to send the thought to Danu and Yamina both, “Umm, help?” and I was lost to my exhaustion. Preferably the non-fatal kind.

I woke much later, In the cot in the blue “god” shop, covered in what was left of the Badgerbear hide. Sitting next to me was Granny Gatlin, in a simple chair, obviously made from the left-over prepared lumber from the blacksmith shop, I’d initially gathered enough to make all of the blacksmith shops framing out of wood, before converting the walls to stone. Too weak to sit up, I turned my head to Granny Gatlin and asked in a hushed voice,

“What are you doing here, aren’t you in Miningtown? Yamina is right, we should conquer that town, give it a less stupid name, and then give it back to the guy whose running it now, boy that’s a stupid name. Oh, wow, I’m totally rambling, stop me if you can.”

With those words barely out of my throat, Granny shoved a simple wooden spoon of some kind of salty mild soup into my mouth, my ravenous hunger quickly shushing me up as requested.

After she’d shoveled me full, I asked “Granny, where’d you get the salt?” To which she replied, plenty of ways to get it, if you spend the time to learn them boy. Even for a mere old bush wise woman and midwife, like myself. Picked it up, following my Bernard to the wars I did. A fine warrior and a finer husband was he. Alas as warriors do, he left me early with 3 boys to raise alone. Learned more doing that too. A bit of this, a bit of that. They took after their father and left me too. This time with grandsons to raise. I miss my boys, but I cherish the littles every moment of the day.

I pulled up the Admin stone, and poured my concentration and shaping into it, but nothing really happened.

“Whoa now youngling, you magic and strength and spent and more so, Yamina says your Regen will not return till you repay all the points you converted out of the Goddesses Coffers.”

“Oh crap, I’m fucked, is she mad?”

[No dearest, frankly I’m delighted, the story of that miracle has spread across the valley and down the river for miles. A miracle you did in my name. I can’t just give you all those points, besides the drama makes for a better legend. Makes you the kind of leader that makes big sacrifices for his people. That will draw the kind of hopeful and skillful people here that we both want better than anything we could have planned. There has even been a bard or 2 by to see you. Not that you noticed. But I cheated a little and lead them to the settlement and put the debt firmly on your shoulders. If I were like Mab, I’d own you right now.]

[I bet you tampered a bit there too, eh] I said, as wryly as I had energy for to the goddess. It wasn’t particularly wryly, but I tried.

[Close enough that I wouldn’t take that bet. Do me a favor though, don’t look at any of any quest reward from this till after you are back on your feet and steady. Otherwise, the auto reward system might waste its rewards on healing you, instead of what you deserve.]

[Can I putter around in the other menus? I have some ideas for working the quest angles.]

[As long as you behave yourself, Oh I cheated with the points a little, since it wasn’t technically helping you directly, I had wiggle room. We’re 4-1, just so you know.], her voice playful and light.

[You just like keeping me near zero, because you think I agreed to stop negotiating then, but our agreement was on all points, yours and mine. I can still negotiate every quest. Though to be honest, I haven’t seen much reason in a while.] laughing a little as I spoke.

A soft musical snort was all I got, and she was gone again.

I set up some more basic resource gathering quests, and assigned to everyone. In the process I noticed that “everyone” was made up of a lot more people than I remembered. There was Granny Gatlin, 2 of her grandsons and one great grandson. The cooper we’d talked about before, and 4 or 5 more, I didn’t recognize, all converts to Danu and most citizens of Danuhold. Some were converts were still in Miningtown(blech that name!). I put the Mastery Quest stone into the shop inventory, so any of us can access it at need.

I assigned System chat to the settlement, and shared it with everyone. Set up a quest, to give them all Cartography as well, and sharing of maps automatically at settlement and religion levels.

Cross sharing maps of an area this new, would be of huge benefit. We might get converts joining us just for that benefit alone. Hell, this place was probably well enough staffed that Yamina and I could go claim that temple, um I mean ‘undefined scary building’, at the headwaters. That was way too important to let slide much longer.

Next, I set up lots of basic. lowkey religious “spreading” quests available to all members of the church like sharing detail about the faith, telling people why you joined, what you like best now that you’ve joined. Basically, lots of low automatic reward quests, instead of one large one. But all the little quests driving the needs that would have driven the large quest. Rewards for converting people. improving the Settlement. The kind of quests people basically needed to do already without reward, but we wanted more volume of it. Then I set up a quest for Yamina and I where we got a small reward for quests we gave people when they finished it. Lastly, I shared “Spread the Faith” with Thorbjorn and Jimni. I added one last generic “help the Settlement” and “Help the church” quest, to cover any gaps I’d left.

About then, my head drifted off towards sleep again wondering what was in that soup. I turned my head to granny’s and said “Mickey Finn soup damn you, sneaky old lady, you’re lucky I have a soft spot for tough old ladies, My Granny, she was a classic battleaxe. Soft when needed, tough when needed. Great wom…” and I was out.

When I woke up, my mind sharp and clear, I had a feeling I hadn’t just been sleeping overnight, Yamina was there. “How long was I out?”

“It’s been about 3 days, that Cartography quest of yours was brilliant, but it nearly killed you., when you add specific skill rewards, the power comes from you after the settlement pot is spent. You really need to start trusting me and keeping me in the loop on stuff like this. This sort of thing is exactly why I have System Knowledge. This is literally twice in a row, you knocked yourself back into the sick bed before you even got out of the sickbed. ”

Feeling guilty, I replied “I know Yamina, Its’ just that to me, you were 13 a couple days ago. The fact you’re nearly 17 or 18 now hasn’t really sunk in. The changes are just happening too fast. I wind up just getting stubborn and doing things myself.

Yamina replied, “Thorbjorn and Jimni led a call to all voluntarily tithe you 50% of all CP, BP, LP etc. that we earned. That’s partly why you’re awake after only 3 days, instead of asleep or dead. Momma and I had to make a new job group and guild ‘Travelers’, and just give them the cartography quest. Giving it to everyone, even the home bodies was going to kill you no matter what we did. Maps still share for everyone, even travels from before they joined. That was brilliant by the way. We have very detail maps of folks trips up the river to get here. And rough maps of all kinds of places far far over the horizon. We should set up map copying quests, so our maps continue to grow even if we’re just visiting folks. “

I tell Yamina to go for it, and she gets back to the original topic.

“Momma making Thorbjorn a Battle-Skald of Denu and you sharing the spread the Faith quest to him, was also inspired. He’s been heading to town and back and sharing what a sweet deal we have here for anyone not too firmly entrenched in MiningTown. Which is basically anyone not in the guard or the Merchant’s pay. He even converted a few of the hardcases.”

I said to Yamina, “Can you call your Mom and ask if I’m healthy enough to go through all my quests yet?”

Once I had Danu’s okay, I dug into the summaries, it was too much for detail work.

Holy Poop, that’s almost 2 levels, wish I’d had the cp buff up, I’ve been crap about that buff.

I looked over the settlement, we now had a fishmonger stall and a Basic Fishing pier, and a General Goods stand in the market, run by none other than the Miningtown merchants priceless Brewing Brother-in-law. I can’t decide If I like him striking out on his own, better or our shop automatically being part of the Miningtowns merchants own trade network. Hopefully both will pay off in the long run.

It was about then that my patting myself on the back led to its inevitable conclusion. Trouble.