With a third of his adventuring party dead, Baron William decided against going into the crypts below Hungrytown the next day. Instead, he magnanimously declared a day off for all of his subjects. He and the Baroness spent the day touring the new Hamlets of Unicorn Vale and speaking briefly with the families. He brought the Mayor of Sedgewick along with him, and they discussed ways to improve each area, possibly using the building points earned during the war. As they began explaining how building points worked to the Village Elder, Jonathan was astounded when a new message was sent to him.

Congratulations on being rewarded with a second job! You now have access to the Hamlet Building system. Just to let you know, building points are rarely granted and only for special events or large expansions to the areas you control. Unicorn Vale is awarded 1000 building points for the Victory over the GRA. Unicorn Vale Building Points Available Points = 1000 Name Description Requirements Cost Big Red Barn A huge barn made of sturdy oak beams and cedar shingles. Available Space 50 Improved Pastures Creates 1 acre of pasture with a water source and healthy vegetation. Available Space 2 Defensive Bocage Surrounds the vale with a ring of piled rocks, sturdy trees, and thick thorns. None 250 Small Grange Hall A small barn with a grain silo and a dozen animal stalls. Hamlet 100 Central Grange Hall A large barn with grain storage, animal pens, and suitable for many things. 5 Hamlets 250

He turned to the Baron. "What should I do? If they are rare, should they be saved? Or used now? And on what?" Billy, Layla, and Suzette looked at the list. The top five items were new, and the rest was a duplicate of the walls, storehouses, and other options that Suzette had.

Layla scoffed at saving them. "You need them now; invest in the infrastructure that will get you started and earn money the quickest." Billy and Suzette agreed. Suggestions were made, ideas tossed around, and with the input from the other farmers, the plans were made. The central one-hundred acres of land were turned into community pastureland that all of the hamlets would use. The center of the area became a large grange hall that would be used for meetings, celebrations, livestock judging, and pumpkin festivals. A Big Red Barn was given to each hamlet, at the edge of the pasture nearest to that hamlet, to shelter animals.

There was much debate about spending the points on the Defensive Bocage, but Suzette pointed out how it would make the ex-refugees much more secure. This was a wilder area, and wolves and bandits would be a problem for a small village. Bocage normally grew over decades or centuries as farmers piled rocks around fields, trees grew in the rubble, and vines created a natural hedge. A determined man could cut his way through it but with difficulty. After Jonathan made his choices, he had 50 points left, and the barrier began to grow and encompass all five hamlets and their fields with openings for the road in two places.

The unicorns were delighted and treated the area as a secret garden. They created stone arches from the rocks where they wanted them, secret entrances only they could see. One clever grandmother noticed their love of strawberries and began to gather the wild plants and bring them to the area behind her house. She was rewarded with mounds of fertilizer that she used in her garden. The strategy was soon followed by many others. The inside ring of the bocage grew to resemble the fields around the giant maple, filled with wildflowers, lush grass, and berry vines.

The meeting also attract a dozen contract workers who had worked on the hamlets. Basil, one of the stone carvers acted as their spokesman. "Some of us are hoping we can move out of the barracks and build houses here in the hamlet. We aren't asking for a hand-out. We'll do the work ourselves, from cutting stone and lumber to building the houses. What knowledge we don't have, we'll trade for to other workers. Some of us are in this for the long-term, maybe even longer than the five years we're contracted for."

That actually surprised Billy. He'd assumed that most workers would love to buy out their contracts and go do something else. The idea that people were looking past the end of their contracts was a new thought. And one he certainly was in favor of. It was going to take him more than five years to conquer the Empire. He was in this long-term as well. He looked at Layla. "Give us a moment to confer, please."

They came back after ten minutes. "We've decided that your idea has some merit, Basil, but I'd like some rules set down. Anyone wanting to move to a hamlet has to get permission from the Village Elder and the Elder of that hamlet. But I also think we have some room in two more spots. Once that outer ring of bocage is grown, it leaves two ways into the vale. It wouldn't hurt to have some stout contract workers living at the gates on either end to protect against any sudden invasion of creatures. Anyone wanting to live at those two spots can coordinate with Suzette. The Barony will allow you to harvest wood and stone for your homes and we can swap some overtime for the glass and metal needed. And lets do this right. I'd like to see all of the homes look like Sedgewick. Stout three story houses with that gothic look. No little hovels in this barony."

Ozzy started his day off early with some experimentation. He didn't want to be surprised by normal things in the conjunction, such as water and cold. He went to Delbert to ask for his help with figuring out the effect cold had on him now. Delbert was delighted. Ozzy could shrug off his small attack spells, his elemental mitigation negating most of Delbert's damage. But when the Ice Wizard touched him and cooled him directly, he felt his heat plummet as his furnace cooled off rapidly. "Damn, that last spell is really effective on me."

Delbert seemed to be able to sense his furnace. "I can feel all that heat in you, just like I know when a room isn't cooled correctly. I'm even starting to sense people by their body heat if they enter my refrigerated storage areas. You're easy. Always hot. But that last spell was just my basic cooling spell that I use to cool off a room. Good experience gains from doing that to you."

The Butcher considered that. "We may have to experiment with that further. I can absorb heat slowly to refill my furnace. But I need more practice. What would happen if you chilled me while I pulled the heat out of a fire, and we kept the cycle going? Might be a way to power level you, and maybe I could get a handle on my abilities quicker."

"Oh, that would be great! I don't have many abilities yet, so earning experience is hard. Just let me know." The happy frost wizard returned to his lair and left Ozzy to continue his next experiment: water.

He had taken some time that morning to carefully test the effects of rain when a small shower had started about dawn. The rain made him a little uncomfortable but otherwise did not affect him. He needed to test with a larger amount of water. He went to the pool where the creek widened to take a bath and experiment further. Wading into the stream felt odd. Part of him didn't trust the water not to attack. It was lurking, just waiting for him to go deeper.

Getting his head below the water took an act of willpower, and he kept his mouth shut and pinched his nose. Being underwater felt wrong. The feeling was similar to when the void shark circled him like a predator was watching him and just waiting to pounce. When something pinched him on his butt and roared, he shot to the water's surface and got to the bank as fast as he could. Roaring with laughter, Jenny walked out of the water near her house. She was carrying a bucket of fish and wearing nothing but green skin and a few scales. She winked at Ozzy, then shook herself off and entered her house.

Ozzy took several deep breaths. Jenny looked a lot different this morning, but who was he to judge? On her, green scales looked good. He stepped into the water again. He didn't feel any discomfort. Water wasn't the predator he had sensed. He decided not to mention this experiment to Suzette and stick to using the tub for bathes from now on. He dried himself off and went to work at his Smoke House. Technically, it was a bigger predator than Jenny. But it was his predator. As he walked in the door and started stoking the fire of the pit, the jingle of chains sounded happy.

Today was wing day. He hauled a wagonload of large wings taken off of the creatures in Gadobhra. Some were from flying pigs, and others from carnivorous ostrich and penguins. He covered them in ground peppers, packed them into barrels, and covered them in a tangy tomato sauce. Each barrel was infused with a small bit of smoke and a lot of heat.

He was starting to get the hang of managing his heat in the Conjunction but needed to know more. He had spells to experiment with that used Heat and Smoke, but he needed to pin down how Heat worked. He still had his furnace. It was like a ball of hot fire in his belly, giving him a warm and comfortable feeling. When he got low on Heat, he felt hungry and shivered. Heat was slow to come back just by eating food and resting. That method could take a month to bring him back to full power and another month to replenish his Smoke. Thankfully, there were better methods.

He had an ability, something like a cantrip, that let him focus on an object with Heat. He could then pull the Heat out of it. It was tiring, costing ten stamina for every point of heat. But stamina, he usually had plenty of. Then he could make Smoke, like he had done it before, burning Heat and mana. The overall process was much slower most of the time. He'd need a big bonfire or coal-burning stove to steal a lot of heat. And best of all was his Charnel pit. Taking heat from the Pit was almost effortless; the only cost was wood or coal. He pulled Heat steadily from his Pit and into himself as he worked on the barrels of wings. Then he created smoke, followed by stealing more Heat. The fires in the pit roared as they burned the fuel to heat the Butcher.

After four hours of work, he experimented with his Chain Drag spell, watching to see how much Smoke it used. Moving around barrels, even several at a time, drained nothing. His theory on that was the Trammelian Chain was doing the work. He started burning Smoke if the weight exceeded what he could normally pull. He needed to test against something bigger. He looked at the chains above him. "You up for playing some tug of war?"

The Pit learned the rules quickly. The object was to pull or drag a barrel to its line before the Butcher could pull it to his side. Ozzy's STR score was at 37 now. He easily overpowered the Charnel Pit when it wrapped a chain around the barrel. The Pit wanted to please the Butcher, so it added another chain. Ozzy felt more resistance but could still pull the barrel to his side. Three chains were a challenge, and the Butcher started to lose the contest and burn smoke at four chains. He started winning again using Push Onward to gain +5 STR, but Chain Drag increased the smoke it needed. The Pit added a 5th chain. Ozzy used Push Onward, his maximum of three levels, burning thousands of stamina. At STR 52, Ozzy could barely win against five chains. When the Pit added a 6th, it was no contest. Ozzy sat on the barrel of smoked sloth ribs to take a break. "I guess you win that one. I'll have to get stronger, and we'll give it another go.

Oh dear, what have you done?

Charnel Pit of the Butcher of Sedgewick has learned the Skill: Tug-of-War, a primary STR Skill.

Butcher of Sedgewick has learned the Skill: Tug-of-War, a tertiary STR Skill.

Ozzy raised an eyebrow at that message. "Oh really? Now that's interesting. Very interesting."

Changes to Heat in the Convergence:

Sometimes something simple isn't. I realized I needed a better system for handling Ozzy getting spells and spell-like abilities from heat and smoke. I didn't want them just to be fueled by mana like a normal spell. Being in the Smoke changes you, especially when you get take favors from a god like Jack.

Heat in the Convergence:

Only Heat and Smoke are tracked. Fuel is the food in your stomach. If you are hungry, using fuel will cause damage to your stamina. Spells from the Aspect of Heat will draw heat directly from your furnace. Spells that require smoke will drain your reserves and then require you to produce more smoke from fuel and mana. There is no limit to the amount of smoke you can make, but it can only be replenished by burning mana.

Or stealing the life force of sentient creatures, but good Butchers don't have that skill. No, not judging you.

Heat can be replenished by absorbing it from something else, which drains stamina at a rate of 10 stamina to 1 heat.

You may also regain heat by eating. Certain foods will give more heat, and producing heat takes more food than normal. Normal food and drink will replenish 50 heat per day. Fuel-heavy foods such as smoked ham, coal, and dwarven whiskey will restore much more.

Mana Conversion: 1 heat + 5 mana = 10 Smoke

Furnace (Maximum Heat): 50 x Level (11)

+The aspect of Heat: +50 x Rank (8)

+The aspect of Radiance: +50 x Rank (1)

+The aspect of Fire: +50 x Rank (10)

+Ambrosia of the Gods: +500 (currently 2)

Current Furnace = 2500

(Smoker) Maximum Smoke: Aspect of Smoke x100

+(COR + RAD) x 50

Current Smoker: 4400

Cantrip: Absorb Heat: For ten stamina, absorb 1 Heat.

Cantrip: Create: Create Smoke For the cost of 1 Heat and five mana, create 10 Smoke.