In the morning Donnie brought me down into the house’s basement. We walk around the space with lit torches. Batteries were being saved for emergencies.
Two bedrooms, a study, built-in bar, and with more than enough seating to have a respectable party, the basement could be a whole other house unto itself. Another side room is filled with hunting trophies, ranging from small animals all the way to a full sized black bear.
Donnie, like his wife Sarah the Cleric, is an overweight guy. Similar to me, he sports a shaved head and beard, though his facial hair is far bushier. He took the Artificer class, but without the proper tools, there isn’t much he can do at the moment.
“While you were gone, I got bored and searched around. I thought to myself, if this guy’s a doomsday prepper, he’s got to have a stash of some sort. Well, lo-and-behold, lookie what I found.”
Behind a false bookshelf is a vault.
The size of a doorway, with a large turn dial lock in the center, the black metal door looks ominous.
“How in the hell are we going to open this thing?”
“Andy’s a Rogue. Don’t they have lock picking abilities?”
Five minutes later, Andy is taking a crack at it. Two hours later, he has it open.
“Not going to lie. That’s a lot harder than it looks in the movies.”
The three of us share a laugh at that.
Inside the vault is a bomb shelter. Roughly the size of two shipping containers, the space is a weird, pseudo apartment, complete with a kitchen in one corner. To the left a door leads into a mechanical room filled with every kind of machinery one needs to survive. To the right is a room filled with metal shelving holding enough food, water, and medical supplies to last two people at least a year. A second door on the right leads to a bedroom.
“Fucking hell, Donnie.” I can’t believe our luck.
Donnie nods as he looks at all the supplies.
Andy grabs a snack bar and starts searching the bunker. Ten minutes later, while Donnie and I take inventory, he finds something in the mechanical room. Inside a false power junction box is a safe. Though locked, a few pieces of wire make quick work of the security. It contains twenty small gold bars, dozens of silver coins, and an assortment of jewelry.
“I’ve always wanted a gold bar.” Andy picks one up and feels its weight.
“How much do you think this is?” I ask no one in particular, more engrossed by shiny metal than anything else.
“Gold’s what, $1,600 an ounce? Each of these say they’re ten ounces, and there’s seventeen of them…” Donnie bobs his head back and forth as he does some mental math. “It’s like $250,000.”
Each of us let out a long, impressed whistle.
Holding one bar in my hand, I try to remember what the System guide said about money.
“To add this to my wallet, I put it in my inventory and hit transfer, right?” Talking my way through the actions, I’m notified I now have 12,000 Credits. “Wait, what?”
Reviewing my System notifications, I find a 20% tax is applied to all non-Shop precious metal to Credit conversions. Explaining this to the others, Donnie frowns and crosses his arms.
“Should we talk to the others about this? We’ve got a lot of money here and it could go a long way.”
I shake my head. “Absolutely not. Have you ever seen a post-apoc movie? Everyone’s going to have an opinion, especially with resources like these.” I pick up two more bars and transfer them to my wallet. “We need to get a Settlement going, and it takes 100,000 Credits to do that. If others know about this, it may end up causing a fight and get divided between too many people. Then we’d really be screwed.”
I finish transferring the rest of the gold, silver, and jewelry. In the end it’s 227,000 Credits.
I bring up the System guide and flip through until I find the section on Settlement founding. Overall, the process is simple: have enough money in your wallet, go through the purchasing menus and select Buy Settlement Core, then activate the Core and voilà!
The Core appears in my hand. It’s a dull, gray iron orb about the size and weight of a baseball. The surface is matte, though it reflects the torch light oddly. I mentally activate the Core.
+Settlement Core activation in progress! This process will complete in five (5) minutes. Once complete, this Settlement Core cannot be moved more than twenty (20) feet from the point of activation, otherwise the Core will be rendered inert.+
+Please pick a name for your Settlement. +
“Shit, guys, quick, we need a name!”
As the time counts down, we throw out every name we can think of, from reasonable to absurd. In the end, with time running out, I decide on something I think I can live with, then immediately regret the decision when the next set of alerts appears. These are broadcasted publicly.
+Settlement of Carcosa founded! All unclaimed buildings within the Control Zone have been claimed by the settlement.+
+Due to the lack of minimum population requirements, Carcosa’s Settlement Core will deactivate permanently in thirty (30) days.+
People run down into the basement and pile around the opening to the shelter. It quickly turns into a shouting match, with many unhappy people voicing their opinions about not being consulted. I manage, with the help of Donnie and Andy, to explain what happened, why it happened, and how, even if they don’t like it, this is the way things are.
In the end, most are satisfied, if a little annoyed, with the situation. The recently found supplies help to placate people. Two naysayers, a stereotype looking hillbilly man and his very annoying goth teenage daughter, announce they’re going to leave. No one cares to stop them.
As the crowd disperses, the original gaming group sticks around. Since we’re the original group to inhabit the ranch house, we’ve all sorta become the leaders. The seven of us, Andy, Donnie, Sarah, Justin, Brian, Curtis, and myself, sit in the bomb shelter apartment and try to figure out what to do from now on.
I read from a menu only I can see. “First order of business: we need to find more people. Right now we’re at twenty-four, twenty-two if Mister Disgruntled and his daughter decide to leave. Settlements require thirty to stay active.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
System provides us a great deal of information, but we have to manually look for it. Very little is offered.
Sarah, never one to back down from letting someone know they did the dumb, gives me a blank look. “Jordan, I think I speak for everyone here when I say Carcosa is a rather trite name.”
Brian, with his expressive eyebrows, shoots Sarah an incredulous look. “Did you just say trite?”
Replying with a middle finger and a raised eyebrow, Sarah cracks and starts laughing once Brian does.
“I don’t think we need to worry about the name so much as we need to worry about getting access to a Shop.” Justin moves his hands through the air, interacting with his own invisible menu. “Once we have one, we can start buying supplies directly from the market, purchase town upgrades, and something super helpful: knowledge.”
“Didn’t the notice about the founding say something in regard to claiming buildings?” Andy stands in a corner, keeping his eye line on the entrance way.
Opening the settlement manager menu, I send the list of buildings to everyone else. The Control Zone, which extends a quarter mile in every direction, lists eighteen residential buildings under settlement control and one under Randy Johnson’s. The ranch’s barn, a massive structure 300 feet long, is under settlement control and is listed as commercial.
“Hmm, it seems buildings can be individually purchased and are classified based on their use.” I find the relevant System guide. “Ah, the different classifications determine what bonuses and upgrades a structure can have. Plus, if you have the funds, you can purchase unowned buildings based on their square footage. You can sell them, too. Interesting…”
It’s still hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that the world has been gamified. Having an RPG character sheet and Class Abilities, fighting literal monsters, wounds that heal before your eyes, and access to a computerized menu all makes me think I should be a lot less calm. For whatever reason, we’re all taking it all in stride.
Curtis speaks up. A long time staple of the gaming group, he’s too well educated for a substitute teacher, having jumped between several majors in college. I always thought the idea of a six foot three, 300lb balding man teaching elementary kids to be rather comical.
“First thing we need to worry about is housing.” Curtis sends information to everyone. “For 5,000 Credits we can get System powered utilities here. That’ll keep us from having to shit in a hole in the ground out back.
“And there’s too many people in the ranch house. I think we should spend some of the money you have, Jordan, on upgrading a few of the houses across the street. That way people can have some privacy and space.”
“What about monster attacks?” Brian looks at everyone. “They come in random packs, and if we split up, it’ll lead to deaths.”
Justin, using a spreadsheet function in his menu, sends a list to everyone. “Of the twenty-four people, half of them are combat classes. We’ll need rotating guard shifts for every separate group, so that means, at most, we can have four groups.”
The discussion goes on for another three hours. We try to work out the math to justify splitting into groups, but in the end, we decide to keep everyone at the house. There just aren't enough people right now. We plan how to expand and fortify the house and barn, where to put the Shop, how to find more people to keep up the Settlement, and what to do about getting access to a reliable source of food.
It’s nighttime when we settle on a rough plan. Mr. Redneck and his goth daughter end up staying, though they express their continued displeasure about not being consulted. I want to tell the man he’s a dumbass, and no one values his opinion, but alas, diplomacy.
We weather another few monster attacks through the night. One survivor, Emma, is nearly killed when a humanoid shadow beast attacked her during a bathroom visit. A nurse turned Herbalist in our group, Josher, was sure she’d die, especially with most of her innards ripped out. We discover just how good System regeneration is as we watch her wounds fully heal over the next hour.
In the morning, I transfer the remaining 127,000 Credits into the settlement’s wallet and start spending with abandon.
10,000 Credits installs a System utility generator at both the ranch house and giant barn. A ten cubic foot mechanical box, looking like a weird cross between clockwork and dieselpunk, appears outside each building. Pipes and wires go into the surrounding ground, and the thing makes a weird humming noise at all times. Where the water and power come from, and where the sewage all goes to, is a mystery. The guide rambles on about alternate dimensions and energy phase states, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. People are glad to have HVAC, running water, and a reliable source of light.
I purchased a basic defensive package for both buildings. For 30,000 Credits it provides reinforced doors and walls, locking armored window shutters, and a lookout post on each roof.
I’m surprised by how cheap Shop access is, and more surprised by how it all works. A Settlement Shop, which is the lowest, and only, one we have access to at the moment, costs 5,000 Credits.
An hour after purchasing it, a horse-drawn wagon piloted by an elderly, skinny man in a straw hat, arrives. Identifying himself with a Texas accent as Chugg, he asks where we’d like him to set up. I direct him to the barn. With no horses (all were killed the first night), there’s plenty of space for his business. Watching Chugg unpack box after box after box, it’s clear his wagon doesn’t conform to the laws of physics. He takes two hours to unload, and in that time he had to have removed more than a hundred boxes, barrels, and sacks.
With Shop access, I find an interesting fact: we’re stuck at a medieval tech level. Besides System utilities, nothing available in the Shop is more advanced than the seventeenth century. Weapons, tools, and even knowledge are fixed to that time period. Chugg assures me this is normal and over time, more tech will unlock. I try to press him for more information about what exactly he means by this is normal, but he doesn’t seem interested in explaining.
Since I’m the only one with any money, the others swarm me with requests. They want specific foods, or new clothing, or whatever else their desires can conjure up. 50,000 Credits later, everyone has fresh, warm food, two sets of clothing (medieval chic, of course), candy, and many other creature comforts. Part of that cost includes basic armor and weapons for the combat classes, and sets of tools for the artisan classes.
With a little more than 40k Credits remaining, I discuss how to spend it with the core group. Sarah, a Cleric, and Justin, a Paladin, along with me, a Druid, can all use spells, and everyone needs to purchase Talents.
Spells come in tiers, starting at ten and going to one. As the spell tier increases, so too does its cost in mana and components. Considering no one has much in the way of mana, and definitively no material components, we’re sticking with Tier X spells.
Talents, unlike spells, only have criteria to meet before you can take them. These range from specific classes, genders, to minimum stats. The benefits they provide vary wildly, giving skill or tool bonuses, hit point buffs, or even access to abilities from other classes. All in all they’re quite versatile, allowing someone to customize their build to suit their taste.
I could focus on the Magic tree, but I’d rather be a tank than a glass canon. Since I’ve already put all my ability points into the Durability and Nature trees, I only have two spell slots. With a minuscule twenty mana, and an abysmal regen rate, I figured I should take utility spells instead of combat ones.
Even though we’re left with a measly 10k, our ability to not die is enhanced significantly. In the end, I come away with:
Forage (Tier X Spell)
Cost - 5 mana
Effect - Once cast, this spell allows the user to easily find edible plants for the next hour. Higher tier versions of this spell increase the likelihood of rare finds. Please note: the definition of edible varies from species to species.
Speak with Animals (Tier X Spell)
Cost - 5 mana
Effect - Once cast, this spell allows the user to speak with any animal for the next ten minutes. Please note: not all animals are sentient.
Extra Durable (Basic Talent)
Prerequisites - None
Effect - Increases base hit points by 10%.
Druidic Senses (Basic Talent)
Prerequisites - Druid class
Effect - The following senses are enhanced: sight, smell, and taste.