After giving my debrief and writing down the new details, not many were interested in an instance that didn’t seem related to the location and was bloodline related as it wouldn’t be common for anyone else to come across it but the information it gave me was helpful in general for sending back to a city records in case I found out something new about my bloodline they didn’t have recorded, I headed off to my cave for a well earned sleep.
In the morning while going through my usual light healing session with the hunters I got a message passed on from one that Mircha was expecting me around breakfast to see him for a meeting, which was unusual but from my reading usually overseers for settlements would involve those leading particular functions of the town in some decisions or meetings. I just had gotten used to being left alone so long as I was available to heal as needed when events happened, and so long as I kept levelling to provide a more powerful healer plus combatant for the settlement.
Getting to the eating area I grabbed a bowl, a kind of tuber and meat stew with a concerning amount of spice in it, before looking around for Mircha. Finding the large man eating I headed over to catch him to see what he needed before I started on my day.
“Hey Mircha, some of the guys mentioned you needed me today? Anything I can help with?” Sitting down on a log seat across from him at the small wooden table I started to eat the stew, as much as the early food was tasty as supplies became more what we found then what we had brought I was finding I enjoyed the more simplified hearty foods.
“Not too much for me personally Styx, we really need to discuss the healing house’s role in our settlement along with your own. While you have adjusted you have done a fine job of being available and effective as a healer, and trust me I appreciate not having to assign a combat capable person to help watch over a healer in case something goes wrong. However you need to make some decisions, learn a bit about how early settlements work, and then depending on what you want to do, along with what I am realistically agreeable to as the Horusum’s overseer, you free to come for a walk to the settlement core and have that conversation?”
While he was asking I could also feel this wasn’t really a question, at least not one I could say no to if I wanted a longer term future in the town. Nodding I got up as he rose to follow, quickly putting my bowl and spoon in the washing tub on the way past, and made my way towards the only real ‘house’ built so far.
Only a small stones throw away from the eating area. It was where I think Mircha had his home, which was quickly proven to be likely when he opened the door and led me inside. The small house was honestly more a hut then anything at best, no windows, a small chimney poking out of a wooden roof, and a front door that blended in with the walls with a simple wooden handle.
Walking in I could see a pair of basic chairs next to a small table with a jug on it, a fireplace ringed in stone with a small fire burning in it, and most odd a small totem structure in the middle of the room with a soft white glow around it, almost so faint as to not be noticed.
“I can’t blame you for not recognising it, feel free to inspect it if you want, but that is a settlement core. Most places don’t let people near them, to much risk and paranoia left over from when some groups wanted humanity gone I feel, but considering your at least trying to become a founder it seems fair you get to at least know where this is'' While speaking Mircha gestured for me to take a seat, and produced some small earthenware cups from somewhere giving us both a drink of a very watered down wine.
“Not the most luxurious home I admit, but the less we bring and the more we build the easier the system seems to go on us challenge wise. I am going to spell some things out, and honestly I took you as a healer more because I needed one and you were clearly being pushed down a particular path in that guard station, the captain tried to force me to sign something agreeing to only let you be a town healer as it was, but I didn’t take you because you knew everything we needed or had some crazy talent. So don’t mind if I repeat things you know already, and I am not of a mind to talk down to you, we are just at a point where I need to make sure you have all the important pieces to make some decisions”
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“Now, the fun part. Settlements that are new operate on a simple model, you either get pay or a promise of being a key crafter with a town contract when the towns are established past the one year mark. Contracted workers like yourself and the guard’s pay goes into a bank, and in theory you can leave anytime and collect what you have earned so far. I get the money to pay you from a city lord who sponsors this expansion attempt. They sponsor it because they get to claim it as their territory, which matters for their classes and social reputation. I oversee it for similar class and social reasons, if I can get a settlement to last past certain thresholds I earn some minor nobility rights and titles. Then each person who runs a section of the settlement stands to gain similar rewards depending how large the settlement becomes, though this is very very rare in a single lifetime.”
Stopping to take a drink from his cup, I realise most of this is general knowledge I already had but hadn’t really processed and applied to my own situation.
“So, the parts you actually need to care about. First, almost all our early supplies come from hunters, who are either combat classes or suitable crafters who have combat supporting skills, and we either consume what they hunt or we trade for it. Monsters that produce very little value or resources are what we then use for levelling hunts for the rest of our settlement, like the badgers you helped take down. Secondly, healing. Most settlements start with a healer like you, largely combat focused but with a powerful or useful healing ability as a primary skill. This allows it to have more defence in case of monster related events, but still have a good core healing service. In most towns magical healing is expensive or rare to access, at least beyond a minimal quality, but in new settlements it's a requirement if we want to survive certain incidents let alone flourish. However all things must change as we grow”
“For the hunters more of them will shift to their crafting professions, we lucked into a magically skilled farmer which is going to help with some staples, and our remaining hunters could mostly support us however the long term goal is to export materials from the surrounding area. This might be farmable monsters, mana gems if we can find a rare mana source, or hunting materials. Most of the local settlements are farming focused, so really food isn’t that expensive for us but a lot of the materials were far enough into the wilds to track down and are highly valuable. This means healing is going to overall grow in demand, as smaller hunting teams are going for higher level or rarer resources, but as they are more skilled it should be most consistent patch jobs rather than life threatening incidents regularly”
Letting me digest this for a bit I was really thankful Mircha had clearly given this talk to people before, explaining things they by rights should have known without being insulting and ensuring I had all of the cards laid out to decide my path.
“So, we need more healing capacity but also to encourage travel and trade. My ideal path forward is that we bring in a full time town healer, someone who has zero combat interest and will only be a healer. They will be paid for by myself as the overseer, so healing will still be free as long as its not cosmetic like removing old scars and the like. This frees you up a bit to develop your founders quest and cave, providing us a new resource for the settlements growth, but also steadily growing your combat capacity so we have a combat healer on call. Sometimes threats are going to pop up, and I feel better knowing we have someone combat ready who can provide triage in life or death situations. This greatly reduces some serious risks of ours handling these situations, and I hate to say it but if the worst case happened to you during combat our town will still have a healer able to keep us functional. You would of course remain in charge of your healing house, we may need to rename it to a healing cave but we will see, although I would ask beyond ensuring a healer is always available to the town that you don’t take on any micro-management style habits as whoever I get is likely to be an experienced town healer even if their levels are low from lack of combat exp and only sourcing it from healing. If that doesn’t work for you we can discuss other paths, but once you decide this I will share some other information around the settlement core as there are some things you can do to help there that I think you would enjoy working on as well so don’t worry that another healer would take from your role with us”
I spent a while sitting on that information, throwing around ideas and trying to see if I was happy with it. In all honesty I didn’t enjoy being a town healer compared to being in combat or out with the hunters. It just felt more correct and I was a combat class holder, even if my core skill was a healing skill, my mana itself definitely lent itself towards fighting.
“I don’t see why I wouldn’t go with that plan, I do want the right to revisit this two and six weeks after the arrival of the new healer though, like a probation period. Otherwise I trust you Mircha, you seem to care that we do well, and your own gains come from us doing well so our interests are aligned. So tell me about this settlement core?”