Over the next two days they completed preparations. They erected the habitable small Ore Cane tent close to the larger one already in use. Hank, Sabine, and Fritz all reluctantly move in together. It was everything Hank had feared. Every time he entered, he felt he was intruding.

The morning after the second Ore Cane tent was up, Jamie, Gruffly and Marko waved goodbye and set off south with eight of the horses. Marko and Gruffly loading four palfrey’s with mine ore and river pan samples. Jamie taking some of the Ore Cane horses south convinced they would sell well being a better breed than those common in Miylan. Naturally Gruffly wanted to take all twelve palfrey’s and much more samples, but Hank had put Jamie in charge. He trusted the Wanderer a lot more than Gruffly or the drunk contract Gruffly hated.

As he walked the leavers out through the pass past The Sister Hank’s concerns about completing his village quest increased. He looked at his quest journal a few parts of ‘found a village’ were still incomplete. Worse than that, the days were slowly ticking down. Still he resolved not to worry too much, he needed to get some things done before the winter set in regardless of their relevance to quests or people just wouldn’t survive. Shelter being the most important.

Under Ninyette’s direction, everyone spent the next few days covering the Ore Cane tents with a warming fur layer. Then covering adding a third layer. This waterproof layer, secured close to the ground, floating over the main tent, which allowed a small gap between it and the two layers underneath. Hank tried asking about the gap but couldn’t understand the response. Helping in this process, Hank discovered the Ore Cane tents had an opening in the top of the lower two layers to allow smoke out. The waterproof layer had small holes located near the top but not directly above the chimney. All of which made fitting the additional layers quite a challenge made harder by the lack of common language. Another reason to learn whatever the Ore Cane spoke.

Finally Ruadh and the children erected a semi permeable cloth fence slightly back form the tents surrounding them by almost 300 degrees. Standing back from the tents this wall took much of the ferocity out of the wind. “After all you don’t want your warm home to get blown away in a light breeze.” Hank guessed the comment from Ruadh meant.

Hank’s curiosity could not be contained. As soon as the children finished what he called the windbreak, he reviewed the settlement accommodation.

Hankston Accommodation

Settlement accommodation

Miylanesse Tent :

Small average quality level 1 tent with no occupants fitted with an Ore Cane Winter Break

In Use

Private accommodation

Ore Cane Tent :

Medium well crafted level 1 tent with twelve occupants fitted with both an Ore Cane Winter Break and Winter Skin

In Use

Ore Cane Tent :

Little well crafted level 1 tent with three occupants fitted with both an Ore Cane Winter Break and Winter Skin

In Use

Ore Cane Tent :

Little well crafted level 1 tent with minor damage

Unusable

Hank looked at the upgrade ‘Winter Skin’ icon

Winter Skin

A seasonal customisation suitable to Ore Cane tents providing insulation and weather proofing allowing occupants to survive a winter where the temperature does not rise above freezing.

He looked at the ‘Winter Break’ icon

Winter Break

A seasonal customisation suitable to all tents but particular to the Ore Cane culture providing a wind barrier allowing protected tents to survive high wind conditions and reduce wind chill factors.

Suddenly Hank’s log icon lit up. He opened it.

Quest : Found a village

Part :

4 - Give us shelter

Description :

You have managed to provide a level of accommodation for your outpost. Granted none of it is permanent and most of it isn’t yours but snaps for the … unique nature of your accommodation.

Status :

Complete

Reward :

None that you can see right now

“What is it with this game,” Hank grumbled to himself as he closed the notice after only a cursory glance? “Complete a quest and get no rewards.” It was so frustrating. On the bright side, a time critical quest part was complete. That just left a single unfinished quest part. For the life of him, Hank couldn’t work out why it remained uncompleted.

Whilst he was at it, he decided to check his logs. To his surprise, he realised he hadn’t reviewed his medical logs since the storm.

Log (Medical)

Skill

Target

Level

XP Gain

Since you last looked at this log your actions have been summarised. Remember that all experience earned whilst part of a team is shared by the team.

Administer care

Sabine, Ruadh, Fritz and Marko

9 To 20

35

Administer salve

Marko

14

1

Administer tonic

Marko x 3, Ruadh, Fritz

9 To 20

5

Bandage wounds

Marko

14

2

Inspect & Diagnose

Sabine x 2, Ruadh, Fritz and Marko

9 To 20

5

Stitch wounds

Marko

14

4

Looking at the table Hank remembered Ruadh and Fritz had needed round-the-clock monitoring due to their concussions. Ninyette and taken control of organising nurses from amongst the children. At the time Jamie had said that decision was due to Hank’s atrocious bedside manner. In hindsight Hank realised she had been points farming for the kids or at the very least testing them for affinity. Smart he decided. After all nobody received experience or could do anything using the SKAT until they came of age. Nobody wanted a ten year old deciding she wanted to be a courtesan because she thought they wore nice clothes. “Well I’m glad they are staying if they’re farming my XP.”

Hank moved on, Marko had once again consumed all the medicinal ingredients. It was a timely reminder. He was going to have to work out how medical treatment fit into his outpost. It required time, knowledge, and expensive ingredients. He couldn’t afford the ingredients, wouldn’t have the time and certainly lacked the knowledge. Nobody was coming out to the GNF to give it away for free. In the short term he would do but he hoped that one of the wild goose chases he had asked Jamie to pursue would turn out.

Still, Hank couldn’t worry about that immediately, he needed to sort out how five adults and ten children were going to eat through winter. He and Ruadh proved successful, trapping rabbits, pheasants, and other small grassland animals common to the valley. It had kept the group well fed so far, but he was nervous about any reliance on hunting and trapping as the winter descended. Foraging and hunting in winter, Hank knew was a challenging proposition. His trapping skills was steadily increasing but he knew it wasn’t anything compared to Ruadh who’s people lived to hunt and forage.

But Hank’s concerns were only increasing. The rabbit population was falling, so he and Ruadh were forced further from the village each day closer to the GNF. Hank wasn’t enthusiastic about that. Nightmares of giant spiders still woke him during the night and there were noises that came out of the forest that defied explanation. Noises with a decidedly hungry tone.

Hanks thoughts turned to the books he had been reading. The Tabor provided plenty of water, but the prospect of pollution from the village or the mine concerned Hank. Further the flat nature of the valley didn’t lend itself to good drainage. If the water level rose much with in the spring pools would form all across the valley, bringing bugs. Normally a bonanza for wild life but where the prey went the predator followed and that didn’t even account for any weird disease carried by the bugs. Something for the future, Hank decided.

Lumber was also a problem. Hank’s nightly reading revealed tree removal resulted in a plethora of issues, he decided sourcing wood from the GNF was preferential to dealing with those issues near his village. Ruadh was a better logger than Hank, just like trapping. Though neither was stellar. Skill progression had been slow whilst Hank was trying to build his ill fated house. He didn’t see that as a viable way forward.

Finally returning to the settlement Hank saw that Ruadh had allowed all horses to graze near the village. But thinking on the future, Hank realised that when the snow came, there would no longer be enough fodder for them. Raising the issue after dinner one night resulted in a suggestion that the horses could be taken across the Tabor to the jungle type landscape across the tributary to the west. An imperfect solution, but everyone hoped there would be good foraging there. So they resolved to attempt the crossing in the next few days.

Hank also prevailed on Ninyette to allocate children for grass collection. He asked them to store it in his tent. It would be vacant during winter so keeping feed for the horses would be beneficial.

It was a satisfactory suggestion for the horses, but none of this gave him any hints regarding his settlement quest. He was no closer to solving his winter provisions needs. In his youth he had gone fishing with his grandfather. He’d found it peaceful. So, to take his mind off his worries, he decided to go fishing in the Tabor. It was almost a hundred metres wide in large parts of the valley, and it looked like there were plenty of fish. Unfortunately, his experience had been in the real world, here nobody had any real fishing experience, Hank included, so it wasn’t the peaceful diversion he had hoped.

He tried all sorts of things to jury rig a fishing rod. No success. Stumped, Hank changed tack, deciding he needed to cross the Tabor to see if there was a reliable food source on the other side. Hopefully there was somewhere near the village that would suit. Otherwise he was going to have to cross it much further away where they had discussed taking the horses across. Given that the tributaries were both much narrower it seemed doable, but they flowed much faster, making crossing there a dangerous proposition.

To get inspiration, he retrieved ‘Directing Water Courses’ to see if it had useful directions for building bridges or river fords. It was a boring book like so many others that he had bought for reasons of need rather than enjoyment. The book usefully contained sketches outlining how to build certain things. Hoping for inspiration he flipped open the cover and commenced slowly flicking through the pages looking for bridge designs.

Suddenly his eye was caught by a drawing title. ‘Fish ladders’. He stopped and turned back a couple of pages. There, almost by divine providence he saw a chapter title. Fisheries and fish management. Perfect. He had never read that far in the book but now in excitement Hank eagerly read the chapter. He re read it a number of times just to make sure he understood everything. It contained a number of possibilities. Options that Hank thought might present a solution. He wouldn’t know until he had studied the river and its fish for a year if any of them were viable long term. But long term viability was one thing. Surviving winter was another.

Buried towards the end of the chapter, Hank discovered a little gem. An entire section on discussing fish traps. Naturally they were for large changes to rivers and large scale fishing. But Hank could see how they could be adapted to smaller traps. Ones he could make with Ruadh.

A few days experimenting with various designs resulted in a few failures, some more impressive than others, before Hank was finally rewarded with a fish. Caught overnight in one of his various traps it was the first that wasn’t able to escape or break the trap in it’s efforts to do so. This gave him both the fish trap sub skill and it’s first level. Immediately it linked to his rabbit and bird trap skills, allowed Hank to advance his main trap skill to level ten.

With this all his traps received a resulting improvement to camouflage and durability. This wasn't a supernatural change. Rather Hank started to make connections between the various kinds of traps he made and understood the ways that certain aspects from one improved another.

He returned to his book on fish traps finally understanding more about their nature and operation. With a few tweaks to his previous attempts he was able to make successful small versions of most of the traps it covered. Normally this wouldn’t be a reason for celebration but Hank could feel it. Almost like a sixth sense. There was something here in the book or the traps. It alluded him but he set all the traps anyway.