When Louie got back to the wall he was surprised to see three skeletons fighting with Trok and his team, he rushed to help but they took care of the creatures in no time.

He got an of before the skeleton's head was smashed, cricket style, from its shoulders by a smiling Trok, "Six!" He shouted as it went sailing down the road.

He just shook his head in amusement as he read the BB.

Skeleton Lvl 1

This low-level Skeleton spawned from a level 1 spawn point.

Each Skeleton has a skill which will alert those nearby when it is attacked, who then will rush to their assistance.

Armour Class: 5 (depends on armour scraps)

Health Points: 13

Perception: 9.

Stamina: ????

Speed: Normal

Damage Vulnerabilities: bludgeoning.

Damage Immunities: Slash & poison attacks

Condition Immunities: exhaustion, poisoned.

Racial Senses:

Sight: 15/20, Hearing: 18/20, Touch: 07/20

Darkvision: 10/20 (20 metres)

Languages:

Understands the languages it knew in life but can't speak.

'Hmm, Immunity to slash attacks, no wonder my didn't do anything to them.'

"Shit, this IS trash mobs, each skelly only gives 50 exp and 10 coppers," Trok remarked as he looted the mobs.

"You guys ok?"

Trok straightened up from where he was looting his kill. "Yea, after you drew the crowd away and we got inside, they decided to open the gate and wait for you to return."

Louie looked around and noticed Sher was missing.

"Where is Sher?"

"She is inside, busy looking at the babies, we have no healers here." A young 20-something woman with a no-nonsense attitude who looked like the team leader replied.

Louie looked over at the assembled group of people and did a double take as he saw what looked like a giant humanoid mouse peek out from behind a big woman with a sledgehammer on her shoulder.

The creature immediately pulled its head back behind the when it saw that it was seen, but not before he had fired off an

Mousekin Lvl 3

Mousekins are diminutive Humanoids that look like humans with mouse-like features and diverse appearances. Mousekin has a supernatural curiosity that drives them on to adventures big and small. This curiosity has landed them in a lot of trouble. Due to their curiosity, many Mousekin have found themselves falling through gates and portals to other planes and worlds.

Unknown to most mortals, a magical phenomenon surrounds a Mousekin. Spurred by their curiosity and love for trinkets, curios, and keepsakes, Mousekin pouches or pockets will be magically filled with these objects. No one knows how these objects came to be there, not even the Mousekin. This has led many Mousekin to be mislabeled as thieves when they fish these items out of their pockets

Armour Class: 5 (depends on the type of light armour)

Health Points: 150

Mana Points: 350

Stamina: 120

Perception: 20

Luck: 17

Speed: Fast

Damage Vulnerabilities: Poisons, Traps

Damage Immunities: None

Racial Senses:

Sight: 18/20, Hearing: 20/20, Touch: 20/20, Smell 20/20

Darkvision: 18/20 (35 metres)

Languages.

They can speak, read, and write Common and can easily learn another language.

'Wow, for real?' Louie shook his head, 'not now.'

He thought about how there just weren't enough hours in the day to do whatever he wanted to.

He held out his hand to the woman, "Lewis Poren, but people call me Louie"

She looked down at his hand before reaching out and grasping it.

"Louie, I heard good things about you, I would like to know if you would do here what I heard you did with your safezone. Raise some walls, I will find a way to compensate you."

Louie waved her offer away.

"Raising walls is nothing, but why stay out here in the middle of nowhere? You could move to the Marketplace, we are raising mini forts there, and there is enough space for you all and then some."

She was shaking her head, "I am bonded to this building, can't leave here for long, the moment I do I get a debuff."

"And we're not going anywhere without Mother." The said.

"Sorry, I'm being rude, I'm Allet DuTooy," she sighed, "they call me Mother."

"Pleased to meet you," they turned around as Trok and his team prepared to meet the next three skellies that came around a corner.

"They are easy to defeat like this, it's when we get tired and miss a couple, then they start to gather and form a horde.

If they form a horde, then it becomes death by a thousand cuts, and they like clockwork, three every ten minutes."

"Hmm, I can make the wall and place a couple of auto-reset traps that might relieve some of the pressure, but Let's go inside and talk about the details and what you want to be done."

After making sure that Trok, his team and another, all women he noticed, will be able to take care of the Skeletons, 'Mother' let them inside the Shelter.

It turned out that the Shelter for abused Women and Children, SWC, used to be an older building that was later expanded into a two-story apartment block that was abandoned due to shoddy construction by a company that skipped out and disappeared with most of the material and money, something that happened a lot in the pre-pulse South Africa.

The land was bought by the previous manager of the Shelter and then turned into the SWC.

The plot of land was ringed on three sides by a sturdy palisade fence and on the fourth and backside of the plot was a four-metre tall solid wall that stretched around the block from them, there was also an old Shed at the back of the building that has once been used as a parking garage by the apartment block residents.

They sat down around a big old table in the communal lunch room.

"Why 'Mother'?"

*sigh* "I'm trying to discourage them but it's my Class and they insist on calling me that."

Louie shrugged, "ok but why not move to the marketplace, it is a safe zone, no monsters can spawn there."

"True, but monsters don't spawn on the Sheler grounds either and Shira told us how to make an outpost, we got a capstone when Meeera and her kids joined us."

"Meera?"

"It's Meeera, more emphasis on the eee, and she is the Mousekin that you saw at the gate."

Louie nodded, "I sense that there is another story there but let's get back to the Shelter and the capstone, why didn't you use it yet?"

"We wanted to, but then Shira told us what you can do and we saw the Tree go up, so I asked her to see if you can do the same with the walls here before we use the Capstone, this place needs all the love and caring it can get."

"Ok I can do that, but you said you are bonded to this building, tell me how, I don't want to cause any damage."

She gave him the look. That look that all women have when they decide if you are worthy to hold their trust.

She decided to take a leap of faith.

"Okay, as you can surmise from me being here at the Shelter. I was in an abusive relationship," she took a deep breath to steady herself before continuing, "I was from a farm in the Klein Karoo, I grew up very naive. When I was sixteen I fell in love with a visiting neighbour's cousin, a handsome city boy that had a beautiful smile. My parents didn't like him.

A year later I ran away to be with him and I soon became pregnant. It turned out that he also had a mean jealous streak.

I lost the baby after 'falling' down some stairs, he apologised and promised to be better and things looked like they changed for a while till I became pregnant again.

Some guy complimented my radiant pregnant beauty. That night he got drunk and beat me. I gathered my courage and ran away."

For some reason her story grabbed Louie by the heart and squeezed, he suddenly saw an image of a tired scared woman with long dirty hair hiding in a shed cradling a baby in her arms. Pain and loss ripped through his heart.

He took a deep breath and shook the image away, concentrating on Allet's story.

"I ended up here and grew to love them like my family. When it was time for my delivery, I and the Shelter nurse went to TC Newman, and I was on the operating table in the middle of delivering my Daughter when the Pulse happened."

She had a faraway look in her eyes. "Medicine was scarce and the pain was terrible. Through the pain, I swore that never, never ever will I allow myself to be duped or bonded by another man or anybody again.

It was mostly the pain talking, but the system must have heard me and responded. After my daughter was born I got a Blue Box that asked if I will take care of my daughter, these women and children in the Shelter and I agreed, so I got a Blue Box with an oath that asked if I will protect those at the Shelter and in return I will never be bound against my will to any person again. I accepted and so I became the mother for my daughter and the people I was with who lived at the Shelter, the people I cared about."

"We tried to get back here as fast as possible, it was just three city blocks away, but with the sudden appearance of monsters and the earthquakes it might as well have been three city blocks in hell. It took us the whole day, mostly hiding and crawling from one hiding place to another, it wasn't easy with a newborn baby.

It was the next morning just before sunrise that we saw the gates, the earth had stopped shaking and we decided to make a run for it, it wasn't more than fifty metres.

The rats laid in ambush, Debbie, the nurse, took them on like a mother bear protecting her young, she screamed for me to save the child and run. I ran, Gilmer had heard the commotion and ran past me, but it was too late, we lost Debbie to the rats." Again he heard the sorrow in her voice.

"For some reason, the Shelter was saved from the earthquakes, I had thought that it would have been the first to collapse, but it stood, and as soon as I stepped inside the door I got the notification that I was bonded to the building and that I wouldn't be able to leave for longer than 12 hours or I will get a Debuff."

She showed him the notification and BB.

Congratulations, being the first person to bond an inanimate building in this System, you receive a free upgraded basement and a spatial closet filled with all those 'winter bedding' and 'this will fit me next year', as well as all those unwanted Christmas gift clothing.

"We still haven't found the basement entrance or the closet and here we are."

"Yea, knowing the System I would bet that the closet is inside the basement and that the basement has a bloody hidden door." Louie shook his head as he remembered some of the snarky remarks he had first received in his BBs.

Allet smiled as she swiped the tears from her eyes and the memories back into the dark reses of her mind. "It kept the children distracted looking for it."

She shrugged. "We would have all died the first couple of days after the quakes if it wasn't for Gilmer, him, his family and some of his staff. They saved our lives many times over, many weren't so lucky.

His place is just behind us here and it turned out that his eldest daughter had bought this property and started the SWC. He secretly took over the backing of the Shelter after she died.

There were some losses here during the quakes, we lost Auntie Mavis, who was the manager and Secretary and all-around mother of us all and Aunt Dorris who was the cook. When the quakes stopped, the Madntyre Family had rushed over and taken care of the monsters and Gilmer started training us after that."

Louie perked up after hearing the name Gilmer.

"Aah Master Gilmer, he is also one of the reasons that I am here. I would like to ask if he would train me."

So it turned out that Gilmer was actually the neighbour of the Shelter and he has been secretly helping the Shelter after his daughter, who had bought the place after she got divorced died, he then found out that she was abused by her husband. (who later disappeared under mysterious circumstances)

Since the pulse, he had also placed himself in charge of the security of the shelter and he has also been training the woman and older children in stealth and knife fighting and other techniques. Like the Bertha. The ladies have been going out during the night to look for resources and that's where Shira met them.

"You will have to ask him, but I won't hold my breath if I was you, he said he won't ever train men again, not even the older boys."

Everybody started clearing out the Shelter as Louie started on the walls after they finished talking.

He started by raising eight metres high walls, four metres deep onto solid bedrock and three metres wide with his usual fortifications on top, with stairs down the inside of the wall and a couple of arched walkways that would connect the wall to the mini fort that he planned to turn the Selter into.

Louie left the Shelter through the large open stone gates that were a bitch to create due to the huge stone hinges supporting the massive slabs of stone, he meant to make a wicker gate later.

He looked around and spotted Trok's team and the team of would-be amizones tag teaming the Skeletons a couple of metres away. He walked over to the palisade fencing still on the outside of the wall and touched the metal support.

'Hmm metal, metal is part earth, it is from the earth, I don't see why it wouldn't work.'

Louie reached out with his and slowly pushed his spell into the metal, well he tried to but the mana barely penetrated the metal before the spell fizzled out and the mana backlash sent him to the broken tarmac.

It took three sets of Skeletons and multiple times getting to know the road surface intimately before he suddenly got the notification.

"Huh, Damn," Louie remarked disappointedly.

"What's the matter?" Allet wanted to know.

"I thought I might get a new spell, instead I got two levels in and it also Tiered up."

She looked at him in shock, "you got a spell to Tier up?"

"Hmm, it's actually at Tier 4 now." "What?"

He looked slightly embarrassed as he rubbed the back of his head. "I have been using it nearly non-stop since the pulse, it's actually the best way to raise your stats, every time you Tier Up a spell or a Skill you get a +1 in that category, like a Blacksmith, might use and on Tier Up he will get a +1 in strength."

He looked at the wall, "sorry but I gotta get back to making a ditch and now some kind of metal obstruction to slow the undead down."

Louie got started on the dry moat by removing most of the earth and compacting the bottom and the sides till they were harder and denser than the bedrock below, he had thought of using the metal to form some kind of barricade but ended up going with a compressed stone bollard with thick stone hooks to the side that looked like a three-pronged trefoil symbol.

"Why the hooks on top of the stone pillars?" Allet wanted to know.

"The Skeletons have a lot of exposed bones that can be hooked by the prongs and held in place. Shira shows us that they are pretty dumb so I don't think that once they are stuck that they would be able to figure out how to get unstuck."

Aler gave a small laugh, "that's true."

After every ten-metre section of the moat, Louie would stop and form the palisade fencing into a cube of metal that he then placed in his inventory, shaping the metal took more concentration and was much harder to manipulate than the stone and earth so he had to rest and meditate to recover his mana, something that he hadn't needed to do in a while since his mana regeneration was quite high and could easily keep up with his earth shaping.

'Look like I will have to do more grinding and get my up.'

Next, he shaped a stone bridge over the moat but placed a couple of rows of stone lattice on the surface that would be easily avoided by humans but might cause some of the Skeletons trouble as they step into the holes and get stuck or lose a leg. Next, he used some of the metal to create a roller shutter-type door as a wicket gate so that they didn't need to open the big stone gates every time, he placed the wicket gate in a raised alcove since the last thing they needed was for the Skeletons to hammer at the metal gate the whole night.

Nodding in satisfaction they went inside the wall and called the two teams in through the gate to see how the defences would work.

They ran up the stairs and to his surprise he found Sher on the wall with a couple of the teenage kids, mostly the boys, she was showing them how effective hir slingshot was in giving the Skellies a headache.

Her imbued would destroy the head of a Skeleton in one go and had one of the boys shout 'Hadouken!' While they all looked on in awe.

Sher saw Allet, "I hope you don't mind that I'm showing them how to use a Slingshot."

"No, it's good, it will teach them a skill and keep them busy."

Sher nodded before turning back to the kids.

After observing the effect that the defences had on the Skeletons Louie returned to the Shelter building.

He walked up to the front entrance which he had heard was the original building and laid his hands against the wall, he was unable to influence the stone of the wall and slowly started to move to the side till he felt the stone move under his spell.

'Hmm, this reminds me of that structure in the canyon. I couldn't shape that stone either, but does that mean that the structure is a bonded building and that the bonded person is still alive?'

Louie shook his head to clear his thoughts and started to shape and raise the building.

The end result was a modified mini fort which incorporated the shed in the back wall, he used his last lightstones in the construction and also sunk a cistern in the yard since there was nearly no space for a well because the bedrock was so close to the surface. Louie created a sandstone conduit linking the nearby stream to the cistern and also inscribed the cistern with a purification rune that he imbued to keep the water clean.

He used a modified version of the mini fort blueprint to link all the apartments with the cistern and to make sure that they had all the amenities of the mini forts, like the refresh runes in all the bathrooms and also hot water.

Allet watched some of the bigger children running around and laughing as they explored the changes and new addition to the Shelter.

She walked up to Louie as he finished the last of the modifications.

Suddenly she staggered as she was nearly overwhelmed with notifications.

Allet swiped the bunch of notifications away as she heard Louie's voice.

"Are you satisfied with this?" Louie asked.

"Yes, thank you. This is more, much more than I expected. Thank you."

"It's my pleasure, but you look worried. Something I can help with?"

*sigh* "No thanks, it's just that I'm worried about the children, the kids have seen so much suffering, more death and destruction than any kid should, and look at them."

They looked at the happy shrieking bunch of kids that were running around and climbing all over BOB and Kahn, Shira's pet, the giant leopard that she bonded with.

'Shit, still don't know where she found that cat to bond with.'

"They shouldn't be this happy, don't get me wrong, I'm glad that they are, but still, I worry that they might be repressing all that trauma."

Louie remembered how he had felt after he lost his loved ones.

"Maybe it's something to do with the system. We got the temple for Gaea, you should come in to talk to her."

They both turned to the massive tree that still towered over everything, even five kilometres away.

"I would love to, but I can't leave here for long. I'm bound here, to this building."

Louie looked at the huge modified Mini Fort turned Shelter.

"How are you bound to the building, what will happen if you leave? Will you die, become sick, how does it work? And I saw your level. Everybody in your team was level six and seven except you, you are level two, is that something to do with your bond?"

She thought for a moment before she shrugged and decided to show him.

"If I leave the premises for longer than 12 hours I get a Debuff, here let me share the notification with you."

Actiff Debuff: Dereliction of Duty.

-1 to random Attribute/hour till return to post.

"Hmm, I don't understand, the way it's written kind of reminds me of a soldier going awol, Dereliction of duty, and return to post."

"I don't know, I think it has to do with my Oath that I took, an Oath to protect this place and people, this is my bond and my duty to the Shelter, which is my post."

"Hmm, it might be but I have never thought of such a bond."

"Ja me neither, but I don't have a lot of examples to go by, the only person I know with a bond is Shira, and she bonded with Khan, a living creature, but their bond is different.

The first time I received enough experience to level up to level three, after I bonded to the Shelter, I received a notification asking if I wanted to level up or if I wanted to use my experience to improve my bonded. I held off on spending it to find out what I can about my bond to the Shelter."

Louie was shocked as he listened to what she said. "That sound a lot like BP"

"BP?" Allet asked.

"Building points, a friend of mine is running a settlement near Worcester, right outside the entrance of the Huguenot tunnel, which has now turned into a Dungeon…"

"Dungeon?"

"Yea, I will tell you about that later. This friend of mine, Joe, started a Settlement and after he built a Town Hall, there appeared a construction table that he could use to arrange and improve, even build buildings for his Settlement. For every building he built in his Settlement, he got BP that he could use to improve or repair or even upgrade the buildings with."

"Well I don't know about upgrades, mine just asked if I wanted to improve the Shelter, let me show you."

Allet went into her status and opened her page under the bonded tag. "WHOW!" She exclaimed in shock.

"What, what's wrong?" Louie asked as he watched Allet as she sat down on a nearby bench

"Damn, there is so much now, I think I should go through my notifications quickly.

Congratulations, on repairing or replacing the shoddy boundary wall and ensuring the safety of your charges, you have received a blueprint to improve and strengthen the structure of your bonded.

"This looks like a set of armour plates that could be screwed to the building before you changed it."

Congratulations, on repairing the structure of your bonded you have received a blueprint. (Level 1 medical shack) 1 use

"Huh?" She removed the blueprint and saw that it looked like a small shack but it showed that it included a couple of beds and what looked like medicine cabinets, with white crosses on the doors, built into the walls.

Congratulations, on repairing or replacing the faulty electrical of your bonded you have received a blueprint. (Level 1 daycare) 1 use

"That looks more like a pen for sheep with a bunch of stuffed toys, well I hope it's stuffed toys"

Congratulations, on repairing or replacing the faulty plumbing of your bonded you have received a blueprint. (Level 1 mess hall) 1 use

Congratulations, on repairing or replacing the leaky roof of your bonded you have received a blueprint. (Level 1 crafting shack) 1 use

"That will come in handy to keep everybody busy"

Congratulations, on repairing or replacing the broken sewer lines and waste disposal of your bonded you have received a blueprint. (Level 1 garden plot)

Multiple uses.

"Hmm, that works like the Greenhouse we have but without the glass structure."

…

At last, the notifications were done, "look like you fixed a lot of stuff that I would have received as quests

Congratulations, on finishing some repairs to your bonded, your bonded has levelled up to level two.

Congratulations, on finishing all the repairs to your bonded, your bonded has levelled up to level three.

Your bonded's aura has grown with an additional thirty metres in radius, any enemy inside the aura will receive damage of 1 health point for every ten seconds it stays in the Aura.

You have received three blueprints.

Level 1 spatial storage X 1

Level 1 trade kiosk X 1

Level 1 Automated Guard Tower X 6

"Wow, the Shelter has reached Level three and I didn't use any of my experience," Allet exclaimed.

Louie perked up as she read out one of the blueprints. "A trade kiosk? What is that?"

From her inventory, she removed what looked like a folder filled with blueprints and removed one and read the description to him.

Trade Kiosk Level 1

This level one interdimensional Trade Kiosk works on a barter system,

The exchange rate will be influenced by the quality and the rarity of the material.

Example:

1 cubic metre common stone = 1 cubic metre pine boards.

1 cubic metre compressed marble = 7 cubic metre pine boards

"Aah ok so it's not like the kiosks in the Dungeons. Louie followed her and watched as she took the blueprint for the automated Guard Tower to the top of the wall and selected a spot and activated the Blueprint.

Louie had seen, even helped, how Kirt and his team of use a Blueprint to do their buildings, and this is nothing like that.

His Blueprints that Kirt uses, creates a three-dimensional wireframe of a building and soon as a wall is created that match the positioning of the wireframe of the print then it becomes solid with all the fixings that are included on the Blueprint, like runes for lights and the refresh runes in the bathroom, also taps and fittings for water. As long as it is done right on the Blueprint it will magically appear on the finished wall.

Not these Blueprints, these prints create a coloured footprint on the surface where you wanted to place the object or building, green for okay and red for no way. If it's green then you accept the prompt and stand back while the system takes over.

They watched as a wooden Tower slowly raised out of the top of the wall, like it was made from lego pieces, block for block or in this case log for log, til it stood six metres above the wall with an enclosed guard shack on top.

The moment it finished constructing there was a click with a soft whirring sound and an arrow shot from one of the arrow slots.

They rushed to the edge of the wall and saw another arrow hit one of the approaching Skeletons, five seconds later there was another arrow that hit the same Skeleton and five seconds after that another, it took eight arrows and forty seconds to destroy the one Skeleton.

"Wow," they looked at each other in amazement.

Louie walked closer and started to study the tower, "look here, there is a lever that you can pull and it will deactivate the auto archer and set it to alarm.

Allet indicated that he should toggle the lever and the arrow stopped appearing and instead an alarm started blaring.

"Shit that's loud," Louie exclaimed.

The sound suddenly cut off as a red lantern light started flashing in the direction of the Shelter before it also switched off.

Louie looked at Allet as she was obviously busy reading a notification.

"I got a notification that enemies are approaching and I also got the option to switch the alarm to sound or flashing light or deactivate the tower and place it on Standby mode."

"Damn, that is a lot of functions for a Level one wooden tower, what will a level 10 or 20 be like? a Tesla Coil Tower?" Louie was impressed.

"What's a Tesla Coil Tower?" Allet wanted to know.

"It's a Guard Tower in a Game I used to play, it generates electricity and shoots lightning bolts." He saw her standing with her mouth open. "It was in a game and this reality is more Fantasy than Sci-Fi. Let's place the rest of the towers, one on each of the other corners and two at the front right next to the gate."

As they placed the fifth tower at the gate Louie turned to Allet.

"I wonder if I could interest you in a trade for the last use of that blueprint?"

"You want this Tower, but I have seen what you can do with your spells and Shira told me about the tower you raised at the marketplace."

"Yes, but those are just Towers, it is an empty shell that I can place guards in, this however, this is a System build Tower that has inbuilt automated functions that would take me years to figure out, if I'm even able to."

She handed him the Blueprint. "It's yours, what you did for us here will take me a long time to repay, take this as a small token of thanks."

"Thank you, but no payment is necessary, we are friends, and friends help each other."

Out of the corner of his eye, Louie saw one of the kids come running, clearly very excited.

"Mother! We found it."

Alet showed that he should slow down and catch his breath, laughing as she ruffled his hair.

"What did you find Pete?"

"The cellar Mother, we found the cellar and uncle Gilmer said you should come quickly" Pete took off down the stairs.

Allet looked at Louie before they sprinted towards the Shelter.