"The lake?!" demanded one of the demons.

"That's right! I can't believe you people knew this is here and still decided to settle so far away," replied JohnWillStab.

"We don't need water, so we decided to settle further away, since people would flock to the water!" explained one of the demons.

"God you people piss me off..." John sighed before pointing to the bank of the lake.

"There, you see, settle nearby, you can mix the sand and water into sand-bricks." JohnWillStab continued.

"If you're so paranoid, build a wall or something," he suggested.

"Do you really think it's that simple?" asked Alex walking up to John.

"I hope so, they need food, so farms are a must," he replied.

JohnWillStab reached into his pocket and poured a few dozen solid black seeds onto the ground.

"Here, use these, plant them by the water," he instructed.

It took a few hours, but the vague shape of a town began to appear, villagers used the sand and water from the lake to make bricks which soon dried out in the sunlight, hardening into proper bricks.

Slowly the construction of homes began, they were small and layers of wet sand were used as concrete to glue the bricks together.

"You guys are pretty quick at the whole... town-building thing," John remarked as Alex and Jordan sat under the shade of one of the trees.

"Well, demons do have extra stamina..." exclaimed one of the demons, they were carrying large mounds of wet sand to another demon who formed them into bricks.

"I'll go check what's at the bottom of the lake," John said before turning to his two companions.

"Be careful, mister-undead," Jordan said with a smile.

"I'll try," he replied.

John stood up and walked into the water, thanks to his ability to see in the dark he was able to see several large rocks as well as a forest of weeds on the bottoms of the lake.

Just below the surface of the sand covering the bed of the oasis scrambled small creatures.

"What are those?" he wondered.

He moved in closer and saw that they were fish, large fish with arm-like fins which they used to bury themselves in the water.

He collected a large amount of the weeds and dragged them out to the surface.

"You don't plan on making them eat the seaweed?" asked Alex.

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"No, I saw something even better!" he exclaimed.

JohnWillStab grabbed some of the remaining fruit in his pocket and twirled the seaweed into a thin rope before tying one end to the fruit and tossing it into the water, moments later he was able to pull out a large mud-fish, it was grey-brown in colour and had large red eyes.

As soon as it flew out of the water, JohnWillStab knew he couldn't rely on the improvised rope to pull the fish out, so he threw a dagger at the fish, severing its head in mid-air.

"A fish!?" exclaimed Alex.

"There are fish in desert-lakes?!"

"I honestly hoped we'd find some treasure or something in the water, but I guess the fish were enough," he shrugged.

"Not bad... fish, fruit and water..." thought Jordan.

"I know, right." John grinned.

JohnWillStab tossed the fish head into the water, allowing it to sink to the depths before calling out for Arachnophobia who sprouted from his sleeve and devoured the fish in no time.

By the end of the long day of hard work, two houses were almost complete, albeit roofless.

Dozens of the seeds were already planted and much to everybody's surprise, most began to sprout already, and the trees from which JohnWillStab took the fruits earlier began sprouting tiny, green, sour lumps that would soon become fruits.

"The crops in this world grow very fast... guess Lorb went easy on us..." thought JohnWillStab.

"Though I guess the crops in-game would grow fast too... is this a one-to-one scale thing?" he thought.

While the villagers celebrated their new home and JohnWillStab, Alex and Jordan sat around by the water seeing the sunset, a cry came from the distance.

"Somebody's coming!"

JohnWillStab rushed over to the front of the rough pile of bricks referred to as a work-in-progress-wall.

In the distance, over the horizon rode three wooden carts pulled by bird-like creatures.

As the carts came close enough to be heard a voice from the cart in the lead exclaimed:

"We're traders from the east! We'd be willing to pay you for access to the lake!" exclaimed the man in the front, it was a large, bald man with dark skin, he was wearing heavy armour and on his back had a massive spiked club.

"Traders! How great!" exclaimed Eambr from behind John.

"Come on in!" she exclaimed.

JohnWillStab turned to Eambr and placed a hand on her shoulder before whispering "Be careful, they're not traders."

JohnWillStab took a step away from the soon-to-be gate and headed back to his party.

"We're making a delivery to the south-west, we're hoping you could let us stay the night in your town," he explained.

The bird-mounts were clad in heavy armour and the carts were covered with large clothes.

Each cart had three people, most wearing white hoods and masks, probably to protect them from the sun.

"Of course! We'd be more than willing to invite you to stay, though our housing situation is quite poor right now." explained the glasses-wearing demon.

"That's no problem at all, we have sleeping bags with us." assured the bald man.

"My name is Raz, I'm a quest-giver from the north-west." the bald man introduced himself.

"We're making a delivery to the south-west since the south is a bit of a mess right now," he explained.

"I'm Eambr." the white-haired demon introduced herself.

"We've got more info while we were at it, turns out HaremHarry is somehow beating the A.H.A."

"A.H.A?" thought JohnWillStab, he was doing his best to listen in on the conversation.

"I thought the Ajuan Half Army was beating him!" Eambr exclaimed.

"So did we... turns out a lot of players are in support of the less... rapey... ideas he has, like the idea of establishing control over the entire world and establishing a system of nobility," Raz explained.

"That's terrible..."

"Hmm, I'm sure the A.H.A will figure something out," Raz assured with a smile before looking around and spotting Alex, John and Jordan.

"Who are those three?" asked Raz trying to be discrete.

"Oh, them? They helped us move down here, we had to build all this in just one day." Eambr laughed.

"O-one day?!" Raz demanded.

"Yeah... we were kind of starving..."

He turned towards the three.

"They say they came from Arlepia through some magic teleportation stone and are heading south," she explained.

"South you say..." the man scratched his chin.

He turned towards the trio.

"Hey! You three! We heard you're heading south, if you help us unload all the heavy gear we don't mind giving you guys a lift to the south-west." he exclaimed.

"That would definitely shorten our journey..." replied JohnWillStab.

"What do you guys think?" he asked turning to Alex and Jordan.

"At this point, I'd take any help anyone offers." Jordan sighed.

"Yeah, I'm not saying I'll die if I walk any more in the desert... but I might cry the whole way," Alex explained.

"You're a disgrace, Alex..." Thal sighed.

"If you don't stop complaining, I'm leaving you in the desert!" Alex said looking at his sword.

Raz saw this and gave John a strange look.

"He's just practising for a play, don't worry about it," JohnWillStab assured him.

"I... see... well, you can tell us more on the long ride west." laughed Raz before turning away from the party.

"We're leaving when the sun rises, we wouldn't want to get ambushed," he replied waving back to the party as he returned to his group and began chatting about generic merchant stuff.

"He's giving me really weird vibes..." John said in a hushed tone.

"I don't know... the civil war would make any merchant cautious," Alex replied.

"Yeah, I think you're over-thinking things this time..." Jordan agreed with Alex.

"Well... if both of you think so." John shrugged.