“First off, what happens if the factory floor grows too packed?” I met the librarian’s gaze steadily. “With all of the people here, we’re going to start needing expanded facilities, and I’d like for everything to remain coherent. Also, I might need to bring in conveyors from outside.”

“Oh, that’s easy. All of the walls of the first floor can be removed,” the librarian said. “There will still be support pillars, but that shouldn’t get too much in the way. You may want to locate them first, though, so that you can build your factory around them, if you’re interested in everything remaining suitably pleasant looking.”

“Oh, speaking of conveyors,” I sat up, ideas suddenly flaring into my mind. “If I establish a mine outside of the walls, is there anywhere to bring the material inside of the walls via anything automated without taking down wall segments?”

The librarian fuzzed for a moment, expression freezing. Before I could panic though, he nodded deeply to me. “Yes, if you deploy a storage crate inside of the wall, it’ll have a conveyor port on both sides, but only materials can enter those ports. You’ll have more to worry about with monsters attacking the belts or the mine.”

I frowned a touch. “Are you doing alright?”

“What do you mean?” He paused briefly before brightening. “Oh yes, the freezing. I was just doing a deep dive into my notes, making sure that I had found everything that was needed.” He smiled to me. “Would hate for you to get bad information after all.”

I nodded slowly and leaned back in the chair, looking upwards thoughtfully. “Do you have schema for conveyor stuff in here? I have picked up the Automation perk, and while I could go and design my own, I figure for something that foundational, you’d have something already made up.”

The librarian grinned and picked up a couple books from an invisible bookshelf and slotted them into the machine before me. “Good. One of the things you’ll need to learn is that you must not do everything yourself. Your power is great, but it is multiplied by those who can aid you.”

I turned my attention fully onto the screen and leafed through the schema presented: conveyor belts, mergers, splitters, storage, everything I would need to get the factory actually humming. My mind swirled with the possibilities here, limited, ultimately, only by space, for space determined the amount of mines and the amount of condensers, everything needed for this system to run. And with every bit of new power I could eke, so too would grow the space that our burgeoning group could control.

I leaned back as the schema began to settle in my brain, the skills were already there, the schema simply slotted in evenly, only expanding the circuitry of my brain slightly, a few veins on a fractally smaller level. It more tingled than hurt, the first time for such a system alteration to not send me reeling.

“Oh, is there any way to upgrade the advanced facilities we have here?”

The librarian considered carefully, before nodding. “Yes, it is possible, but it will not be easy. You will need to learn the actual schema for these facilities, and then you can modify them with higher tier materials both in the process of construction and in their designs. You are quite a ways away from that, though.”

“Yeah, I looked up some of them in the help, and they need tier two and three materials. I don’t even know where to find those, let alone how to use them.”

The librarian’s smile became a bit wan and severe. “You will find those materials when the game reaches the next level. Hopefully you have time, but the progression of events is going so fast. It will be sooner than I like, of that I’m sure.”

“Well that’s not ominous or anything.” I sighed again and then suddenly leaned forward, setting my forearms against the edge of the desk. “Which reminds me, what’s up with these system notes? There’s a few that are clearly related to the Factory, and they seem to be updating based on my progress.”

The librarian shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We simply had run a lot of simulations, and wrote a lot of scripts to work from.” He sighed softly. “The project head, she’s the one who wrote most of them. Extremely clever woman, I always felt like she had some insight into the system that none of the rest of us possessed.”

“Could she still be out there as a Vestige?”

The librarian frowned at that, taking off his glasses to polish them. “It is possible, yes. Not likely, considering everything. But possible, yes.”

I sensed a sore spot there, and decided against pushing it. Being in the librarian’s good graces had been nothing but useful so far, and I had no desire to harm that relationship. “I probably should get back to work.” I pushed myself up slowly. “There is just so much ahead of us.”

“Please come by and talk any time.” The librarian smiled again. “I understand that your time is limited, but I am glad to be of service in any way that you can.”

“You have, in more ways than one. I’ll be seeing you soon, I’m sure.” I paused by the door before I exited. “Oh, is there any way to drain someone’s erg or keep them from using their abilities?”

The librarian frowned and shook his head. “Not without killing them, I’m afraid. That said, the erg has toughened your bodies. While being knocked unconscious would generally cause some degree of brain damage, you are now resilient enough that such a condition would have its lingering effects healed before they could compound.”

“Good to know.” I smiled and waved before stepping out.

After a quick runthrough of the factory queues and updating quite a few of them, channeling air ingots into cogs, and setting up the creation of storage crates and conveyors and the rest of the material I’d need to fully automate this place, I headed to the lobby. It was time for the meeting with the food team.

Ten people were waiting for me there, including Seren who smiled up to me as I arrived. “Hello everyone,” I said. Looking over the others, it was a fairly eclectic group, people who would likely have never met or interacted if not for the great game. “It’s good to see you all here, I’m sure there’s a lot of details we can hammer out. But let's start with introductions, make sure that I’m on the same page as everyone else.”

Seren made sure to take notes as everyone introduced themselves. Most of their paths didn’t stand out, though Ewen, a gangly young man way too tall for his youthful features, complained sheepishly that his [Butcher] path wasn’t a combat one like he thought. Also, Ilyana who was barely sixteen, had [Tender of Soil], which apparently combined farming and landscaping into a single skill set which seemed especially useful.

It was Karla though who took the lead in most of the conversations, though seemingly out of a place of respect rather than any sort of domineering social manipulation. She was an older woman, more bent than Francis but with as much fight as him. Her path was a simple [Farmer] but that was exactly what we needed, and it was clear that she had the pre-system experience to back up her system-granted skills.

“So,” Karla said, “we should start with beans for the moment. Highly nutritious, can be prepared a number of ways, and can be grown very quickly. As we gain more space, then we begin to grow wheat. Everyone agree?” Murmurs of agreement sounded from the rest of the group.

I nodded, seeing that everyone was on the same page, and that they seemed to be adapting well to the new circumstances. “Good. I’m sure you saw the sign posted in the lobby, but Karla, I’d like you to represent the food production team.”

She frowned a touch at that, before nodding swiftly. “Tonight, right after sunset.”

“That’s right. I’ll leave you to it.” I rose to my feet and there was a shaking of hands as the meeting came to an end. “I have every confidence in your ability to handle this, feel free to get in touch if you need any supplies, but otherwise, I don’t think we’ll need me at your team meetings.”

Karla agreed softly, before perking up. “We will need lumber. We can convert it into mulch and seed beds, where we can plant the seeds we have in inventory. Beyond that, well, the system handles much, but I’m sure we’ll have some tool requirements.”

“Of course, I’ll leave a pile of lumber just outside.” I departed, Seren staying by my side as I deposited the pile from my inventory onto the ground just outside of the factory. While I made my way over to the western side of the wall, and the main entrance of sorts, I watched as the food production team went to work.

Seren flipped through their notes as they kept my side. “The [Butcher] probably won’t have much work to do right away, and the [Rancher] won’t be able to start raising livestock until we have a suitable source of feed.” They glanced up to me with a grin. “He has some chickens stored in his inventory, though. Apparently living things can be stored that way, but only if they’re considered equipment.”

“The system is weird.” I grunted softly and continued forward, pausing briefly at the gates. “I’m going to go cut down some trees until the next meeting, it won’t be especially exciting work.”

“Oh, that’s fine, I’ll just watch your big strong arms work.” They winked at me and I sighed before drawing my axe from my inventory.

“It’s also strange,’ I said as I began to chop. “That it’s so easy to pull equipment out of my inventory when I’m out of a fight, but if it wasn’t for my path perk, it’d be significantly slower to do so in a battle.” The axe head thudded deep into the trunk of the tree, and I worked on carving out a wedge. “How does the system even know when I’m in a fight?”

“Has to be something with the erg, right?” Seren had opened their notebook and startedidly sketching as they watched me work.

“Makes sense.” I grunted and brought forth the axe again, even deeper this time. The axe caught deep and I couldn’t budge it out, until the entire tree suddenly disappeared and my inventory filled with wood. “Still weird, though.”

“I’m not denying the weird.”

For a time, I focused on just cutting down more trees, slowly clearing the area that I would be installing the wall later. “How do you think I handled the meeting?”

“About as well as you could, I think. You could have done more to engage the others and not let Karla dominate the conversation so much, but she wanted to talk, and the others didn’t.” Seren grinned up at me from where they were now sitting, leaning back against a tree. “But that’s the way Karla is, and if anyone has any issues, they know how to find me at least.”

“Good.” I took a moment to wipe my brow before glancing upwards. “Getting close to meeting time, and I want to run by the floor. You have any suggestions with this group?”

“They really shouldn’t be too much trouble to handle. Just,” Seren paused briefly, “just be careful with them. They’ve all been through a lot, and they’re fragile right now, whether they seem it or not.”

I met their gaze steadily for a long moment, then nodded and turned to head back into the crater.