October 20, 2022
Day 1
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Mark was not having a good day. The entire ordeal with Martin was frustrating at first, but Mark chose to see it as a good thing.
After all, the goal of the steward was to explain all the things that the system left out. For the steward to have gone completely off script, going so far as to tell them that summoning him again would set them on a path to almost certain death, must mean something. Mark had a feeling that a dungeon truly must be important enough to warrant such radical action on part of the steward. The fact that he had been arguing for the past 2 hours with the council on which course of action to take, was a clear indication that many did not agree. Mark was running out of patience.
“To risk our entire future on the words of one person would be foolish. He gave us no chance to question him, nor do we have any second source of information to corroborate his words. For all we know, he just wanted to go on a month-long vacation, and is skirting his duties by making sure we don't bother him.”
Tim said.
“But what choice do we have but to trust him? If he indeed has no interest in our welfare, and his actions were indeed a ruse to get us to leave him alone, what do we gain by summoning him every day? We will lose our settlement points, and he may choose to misguide us with half-truths and give us bad advice, just out of spite.“
Dinesh countered.
There were only so many ways the same points could be made again and again, and Rahul was tired of the conversation running in circles.
Mark had heard enough.
“We are not going anywhere with this. I wanted a decision based on consensus, and would have settled for a majority decision. But there are about as many opinions about how to proceed as there are council members. Some are based on complete mistrust of the steward, others on complete trust. Most lie somewhere in between - call the steward a few more times and get some information before we set our course. I am no stranger to taking the middle ground, I even advocate it on most occasions. "
After pausing for emphasis, he continued.
"But, if there was truth to the steward’s words, there's no middle road. Summoning him will cost us all one day's worth of settlement points. The sooner we get to the dungeon, the better, and even one day delay might cost us our lives. This is not a place for indecision or hedging our bets. We simply do not know, and have no data to back either conclusion, but we must still be decisive. My intuition tells me that all the advice our steward gave us within those ten minutes is worth its weight in gold. We don't have the luxury of delaying things any further, there's no telling when the first trial may be upon us, and we would do well not to be caught unarmed and undefended. "
Mark paused before continuing.
"If you trust my judgment, then I shall go ahead and construct the castle and dock as soon as possible, and we shall proceed with investing every further settlement point gained on expanding the cavern. If not, then I will abdicate the position of the representative of Layson Bastion. “
That last part pleased no one, but they held their tongues. After waiting a minute, Mark spoke again.
“I’ll take your silence as your support.”
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Rahul was bored. This meeting was the kind he hated the most. The kind where no one really had any answers, but thought they did, and were happy to spend hours making up reasons why they were right. These meetings usually ended with no conclusions and no decisions. The needle would not move forward, and the only thing that was achieved was a promise of more meetings in the future.
Rahul personally liked the idea of a dungeon and was okay grinding out and leveling till that happened. However, he did not voice his opinion, instead zoning out of the meeting and focusing on his stats again.
Character Overview Name Rahul Sharma Race Human (F) Class N/A Level 1 HP 70/70 MP 170/170 Stamina 80/80 Strength 7 Endurance 8 Dexterity 11 Vitality 7 Intelligence 17
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Martin’s last words, though obvious in retrospect, were still quite useful. He saved them the effort of experimenting and told them straight out that stats could be improved by physical and mental training. That was of course in addition to leveling he assumed, guessing how many stats per level he’d gain. Perhaps 5, or 10?
In any case, Rahul wanted to get his strength, endurance, and vitality up to 10 at the earliest, at the same time continue to stay on top when it came to dexterity and intelligence. He wanted to wait till he hit level 10 and acquired a class to decide if he wants to skew his focus toward certain stats more than others. Till then, he would keep them more or less balanced. For the class decision, Rahul wasn’t sure.
While he was aligned with the steward on the direction for the settlement to take, he did not feel the same way about class decisions. Martin was supposed to counsel them, allowing them to ask questions and letting everyone voice their preferences. Rahul was very squeamish even thinking about stabbing or cutting or piercing or thrusting anything or anyone up close, and that had to count for something. Rahul dreaded the thought of hitting a human with an arrow from afar too, but it was the ‘less worse’ of the two choices.
As for magic, his reservations about being a sitting duck remained, and the more he thought about it, something about magic just didn’t fit right with him.
Rahul then spent some time thinking up a training regimen for himself, incorporating simple bodyweight exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, squats, a lot of running, swimming and sometimes climbing rocks and jumping too. Finally, he would meditate when physically tired, to train his mind and also allow his body to recover. As far as dancing was concerned.. umm.. no thanks?
Seeing the discussions drag on endlessly around him, Rahul’s thoughts shifted to what his teammates must be doing. Lucky bastards would probably be chatting away, having fun, while he was stuck in this damn useless meeting. What if they had already started training? If Rahul would be wasting his time in meetings all day, everyone would level up and leave him behind. Will paying attention to the meeting at least increase his intelligence stat?
After paying attention back to the conversation for two minutes, Rahul decided that it might actually lose some IQ points. He had half a mind to suggest flipping a coin. He chose not to do that, and went back to further thoughts about levels and stats. How much would he be able to lift if he had 100 strength? Will he be able to lift a boulder with one hand? At what vitality can one regrow limbs?
That went on for a while, until Rahul was shaken out of his thoughts abruptly, noticing everyone had gone silent. Then Mark spoke.
“I’ll take your silence as your support.”
Huh, I guess some decision was reached after all.
Rahul thought to himself.
Mark continued.
“The castle costs 10000 SPs, which is increased to 14000 for us due to the amphibious bonus. The dock costs 10000 SPs too, reduced to 6000. In the end, we will pay the entirety of our 20000 settlement points to purchase both. I think the best position to place the castle is that way. The elevation will make our position more defensible, and the proximity to the lake provides access to water. The dock can either be placed on the shore closest to the castle if we want to play it safe, which I think we should.”
The group was a bit subdued but nodded their acquiescence.
“Alright, I’ll start in a few minutes, let’s get everyone here, it might be a sight worth seeing.”
Mark said.
Rahul waited for some time and was joined by his team, who he quickly caught up with. They had waited for him and Daniel and already had scouted a good area for training. Rahul pointed out where the castle would materialize.
After another minute, the ground started shaking, and then a massive medieval-looking castle broke through and simply rose out of the ground. At its center was a large building made of solid stone, around 100 feet high, with towers on all 4 corners climbing even higher. It was further surrounded by stone walls on all sides, around 50 feet in height, and wide enough to accommodate archers and perhaps siege equipment. Finally, there was a large and very heavy-looking wooden gate in front. Rahul wondered how many men it would take to push that door open.
Mark proceeded towards the castle and thankfully, he was able to open the gates with a thought. Inside, Rahul noticed weapon racks filled with all kinds of armor and weapons lining the walls. Going inside the central building, Rahul was greeted by the sight of an absurdly large hall with hundreds of long tables and chairs, more than enough for the entire group to have meals together.
Nearby was a large kitchen and a stairway leading to underground cellars. There were also multiple stairways leading above, to living quarters, which went on for four floors until reaching the roof. On the roof, Rahul saw some more weapon racks, mostly containing ranged weapons.
The 4 corners of the roof had 4 towers and staircases leading to the top of the towers. The tops were empty and had enough room for a dozen or so archers to stand and shoot comfortably. Looking down, Rahul realized that the outer walls had more room than they could possibly man even if every single person occupied them.
Rahul kept exploring until Mark spoke loudly,
“I’m going ahead to purchase the dock as well. We don’t know how long we have until the first trial that the system has in store for us, so let’s be prepared. Continue exploring the castle, choose your living quarters, and proceed to equip yourselves as appropriate for your chosen class. You may accept the steward's suggestion for your class, but you don’t have to. If your gut tells you to go a different direction, explore that too. We have until we hit level 10 to decide. “
With that, Mark left. Rahul and his teammates admired the view from atop a tower, where they could see the entirety of the island. Before long, a large wooden dock emerged on the nearby shoreline. It consisted of a few buildings, which looked like warehouses and workshops. There were also a few piers where ships could dock, and some cranes for loading goods. Rahul would inspect it up close later.
The team then proceeded to choose their lodgings, happy to have somewhat comfortable beds to sleep in tonight, and a roof over their heads. Then they picked up some armor and weapons and left the castle.
It was finally some time to grind some stats, and who knows, maybe even levels.