“Well, I mean…” sputtered Ozzy.

“From now on, you are not allowed to issue any official declarations without discussing it with me first. If you do, I promise you that I will hit your throat hard enough to prevent you from speaking. I would rather this settlement die from your inability to talk rather than have you ruin the lives of everyone here because you issue a directive without thinking! Do I make myself clear?!” asked Caldura as she stood up from her seat with a threatening look on her face.

“Ok, ok. Sheesh. Sorry.” said Ozzy, raising his hands in surrender.

Caldura sat back down and refused to look at Ozzy further, leaving him to stew in discomfort.

After an uncomfortable ten minutes where they both heard Harkonen shout, order returned to the soldiers and Harkonen returned to the tent.

“Ok, I think things are settled for now. Sir, it may be out of line, but what in the hell do you think you’re doing? I understand that you are new to the position, but you do not make declarations like that lightly! The power of leaders is in their words, you have to be careful with what you say.” said Harkonen. His tone was even, but his face was unable to hide his displeasure.

“I realize Sergeant, I apologize. I’ll strive to be more cognizant of the effects of my position.” said Ozzy.

“It’s not Sergeant any more. With your proclamation that I be made the Commanding Officer I received a class change. I’m now an [Acting Lieutenant] of the [75th Platoon]. That means I can assign some [Squads], and even give temporary ranks. So we got lucky. Although I wish we had a chance to discuss the name first.” said Lieutenant Harkonen.

“Why?” asked Ozzy. Only for Caldura to tsk softly from her seat. He glanced over to see that she was still fuming.

“Uh, names have power sir. Specifically identifying them as an infantry unit, a skirmisher unit, or even as a monster fighting unit may have had some beneficial effects on the type of abilities the [Platoon] would have, or special maneuvers that I could execute.” said Lt.Harkonen.

Caldura tsked again.

“Do you have something to add Caldura?” asked Ozzy.

“Nothing beyond what I have already said. Moving forward without properly understanding the consequences of your actions is a good way to prove incompetence.” said Caldura coldly.

Ozzy gave her a glare, but swallowed his retort.

“So Lieutenant, what are the effects, what can the [Platoon] do?” asked Ozzy.

“Uh, two platoon wide effects from the [Platoon] designation. The first is [Call of the Wind], it seems to let unit leaders talk to their subordinates as long as they are within a certain range. We’ll have to do some testing to figure out the range. The second is [Shield Brother], it allows a soldier next to you to read an attack coming at you and intercept it on your behalf. It’s a little less than what I’ve seen in the past but that’s likely because it’s temporary, rather than an actual [Platoon].” said Lieutenant Harkonen.

“I see, should I go out and address the troops? Apologize perhaps?” asked Ozzy.

“Really? A leader can never admit they made a mistake. Better to have an insane person in charge rather than someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.” said Caldura.

“Not now, at least sir. You should give the men a chance to calm down first. You may not view it as a major event but for people in the army, things like troop allocation by a foreign ruler are significant events.” said Lt. Harkonen.

--

“Sumeila, did you hear? We have a platoon now. No running water but at least we have a platoon.” gossiped Harry, a [Line Cook] who was assisting Sumeila with the large vegetable goulash she was making within the mess hall.

“Well, if you prefer that we’re all eaten by manaborn so you don’t have to take five extra steps to get the water, then I’ll bring it up in the next meeting that we need to focus on plumbing rather than the military.” said Sumeila.

The two were at one end of a line of cooks who were preparing the large batches of food necessary to feed the population. This had been one of the key items brought up during their late night meeting, and it had been determined that until the farms started producing food, and proper infrastructure had been set up and people could cook their own food in their own homes, it was just more practical to keep all the cooks together to feed everyone from their supplies.

“I wish we could at least get out of these tents. A proper kitchen would be lovely.” grumbled Harry.

“What’s the matter Harry? Rick’s [Field Kitchen] not good enough for you?” teased Kelly from down the line.

“Are you shit talking about my [Field Kitchen] Harry?” growled the tall, heavily muscled ex-soldier, who had shifted from being an [Army Cook] to joining them in the mess tent.

“No Rick.” said Harry in a sing-song voice. “I’m just bemoaning the loss of running water. By the way, I heard that the [Patrician] is out in the field helping to clear them for the [Farmers].”

“How do you even know that?” asked Sumeila.

“Heard it from Derrick, he’s a [Messenger], and he saw it.” said Harry.

--

“Oh god, why did I agree to help? I’m dying Caldura. I’m literally dying. Aren’t you supposed to be saving me from dying?” complained Ozzy, even as he continued weeding the designated field. The two were assisting in the development of the new farm fields.

Caldura was moving nearby in strange stances as the earth turned over in short lines near her. “The most important thing for the settlement is to set up a food supply, and farms are something that if set up now will pay dividends in the future.” she said, panting lightly.

“Aren’t there specialists for this though?” asked Ozzy. Pausing to sit on his butt as he looked towards Caldura.

Caldura paused as well, wiping some sweat from her brow. “There are. High level [Farmers], [Gardners], even [Landscapers] who can clear fields with their skills. Unfortunately, our farmers don’t have such skills.”

“By the way, how are you doing that? The earthbending. You said we would talk about it later, but you never did.” said Ozzy.

“You’re not getting out of weeding. You promised the farmers that you would clear the field and whatever social currency you have at all with the people needs to be maintained. If they start thinking that their leader can’t be trusted then that would adversely affect the development of the settlement.” said Caldura, continuing to turn the earth over.

“You can talk while doing earth turning right? C’mon!!” said Ozzy, even as he turned over to continue weeding.

Caldura was silent for a moment and for a while the only sounds were those of birds tweeting and dirt being turned over.

“You know how [skills] work, yes?” asked Caldura.

“Ya, after we talked I asked around about it a bit more. A [skill] is an application of mana in a precise way via knowledge provided by the God of Knowledge. Someone can learn a skill, even if they don’t ‘Know’ how to do it per se, but by activating the skill they utilize the God’s knowledge to automatically manipulate mana to achieve a result. Basically, someone came up with a way to move fast using mana, named it, and that becomes a [skill] that can be learned by other people.” said Ozzy.

“Correct, what does that tell you?” asked Caldura.

“It tells me that this world is weird if people are manipulating one of the fundamental forces of the world for a magical effect by pure force of will via knowledge from a mysterious entity.” said Ozzy.

Caldura sighed. “No, it means that it is possible to manipulate mana without a [skill] and that it can induce a variety of effects beyond what a [skill] can provide, or that you can even manipulate an existing [skill] to a certain extent, if you have sufficient knowledge or practice.”

“Wait, that’s what you’re doing? You’re manipulating mana without using a [skill]? Why doesn’t everyone do that?” asked Ozzy.

“Because, it requires a lot of effort, practice, strength of mind and discipline. It’s a lot easier to just gain a skill. A new [Geomancer] could do what I’m doing. They don’t need the years of training that I have to do so. The trade off is that I can do a variety of things, not just turning over earth, I can create a rock shield, use earth to move faster, fling rock projectiles etc.” said Caldura.

“Then why doesn’t everyone practice a little on the side? I mean, even if they don’t get super good they could do a few minor things right?” asked Ozzy.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? It takes a lot of effort to learn how to do this. I’m nearing 50 and I’m only a Journeywoman. It requires years of meditation to learn how to sense mana. Then you have to learn how to manipulate mana. Then you have to learn how to manipulate mana in such a fashion that it provides your desired result. In the same span of time someone could become a mid-level [Geomancer] and learn to do a lot of the same things that I could. For most people, that’s enough.” said Caldura.

“Then why are you going about it like this?” asked Ozzy.

“Because, levels become much harder to gain the higher up you go, [skill] gains become less frequent, and eventually, unless you face ever increasing challenges, they plateau. This method, there’s no real limit, the difference is the time and effort that you have to put into it. For most people, especially for people in the cities, they will only face the same level of challenge their whole life.” said Caldura.

“Huh, glad I don’t have to learn it, sounds like a pain.” said Ozzy as he smiled. “Meditating any more than I have to would probably make me go crazy.”