“So not the most amazing trade, but turns out one of the hunters has a nephew who's been hoping to grab some combat cards on the cheaper end out here for if they drop lucky so he can bring him out here to help out. But I managed to get you ten cheaper end fur blankets, which should cover your needs”
Grabbing some of the pile of furs Chris had carried over I started taking them through to the rooms, ten was great as it meant I could use one to make my own bed more comfortable as well as having a blanket for all of the others. “That is perfect thank you, did you get something for yourself in the trade? Just keep them folded and toss them in the middle of these bunks”.
Quickly getting the blankets in place, I would have to remember to shake them out to avoid them getting dusty regularly. We moved back into the front part of the cave together with Ember staying to inspect the new blankets.
“I didn’t get anything for myself, but honestly the experience was really worth it for me. Ranking up some of my skills is tricky, it's more about different types of resources and making unique cards or items out of cores. I also heard you brought some more shards out of the dungeon to go along with your gloves? Also not to be rude, but is it a strange bar or something you are visiting in your dungeon instance, like first its a tattoo covering an entire arm and now its scary looking gloves” Leaving Chris to laugh at his attempt at humour I went off to grab the drops from the dungeon for him, though I am unsure what I actually need in trade it would still be stupid to not make more options available to strengthen our combat skills.
“Here, not sure if it's much better or worse, but if you can let me know what you make out of it? I think I might have to be more involved with the hunters once we have a more towny town healer to help cover gaps and I will need to go out on excursions with them as a combat healer, so having another combat skill might be a good option depending on what it makes”. Passing him the drops for him to work with, before looking around, I noticed a pair of hunters I had healed a few times making their way over.
“Hey, Chris and Styx perfect. I needed to grab both of you, I haven’t had a chance to meet you Chris but I am Kev and this is Degert'' Shaking hands with both of them Chris looked as confused as I was about why they were making an effort for introductions, they hadn’t seemed particularly important to anyone around here yet “So good news, well I hope it's good news for you two, Mircha approved me to take a team to hunt for resources for the settlement. I have a class skill that lets me sniff out interesting valuables, like rare plants or ores, sometimes even just really strange items. He gave me approval to offer you a spot as our harvester Chris and you as our healer Styx. I have terms and everything written down if you two have a moment to see if it's something you're interested in giving a shot?” Smiling with what would definitely be a winning smile on someone else, Kev seemed so earnest I figured it couldn’t hurt to at least check out the terms.
Kev was definitely carrying a bloodline like myself that had some physical impacts, only around 5’6 but lean as a whip with quite sharp wolvish features, and eyes that were forest green that looked to be more from a class or bloodline then a direct parent. Dergets on the other hand was a large man, easily 6’2 and while not particularly large definitely had a solidness to him that made it clear his role would be as a tank or frontliner of some kind. With striking blue eyes and a short blonde beard matching the rest of his hair he was more the sort I would have expected the winning smile attempt from.
“I am happy to have a chat, Mircha mentioned that I would be more combat involved once the new town based healer arrived to support me, so if we can grab some experience and useful resources for the settlement that sounds like a strong win to me. You want to come back in as well Chris? I know you have that crafting back logged so I doubt anyone will mind if your busy” With how unsure Chris looked I figured giving him an out wouldn’t hurt, but he surprised me by agreeing to have a chat and see what the offer was.
Sitting two to a stone bed facing toward each other, with an almost comically large gap of a few metres between us, Kev started up his sales pitch. “We don’t have a lot right now in terms of odd resources, you know strange plants that are cultivated locally or an interesting replenishing ore source, the kind of thing that really helps settlements grow into power houses down the line. My original core skill lets me sniff out treasure, well specifically it lets me find things that aren’t owned by anyone I would consider friendly that would be useful to me or for my goals. Its really vague, and sometimes it means finding a really good pair of boots at a reasonable price or it in theory could be a rare regenerating plant perfect for our settlement. This means Mircha thinks it is worth providing me with a team as the settlement stabilises to go on resource runs to try to find useful stuff. Here are written copies of what I am going to cover, but I wanted to be clear what I am committing to and asking for is all overseer approved including the conditions” Passing over a few sheets of paper I was surprised to find only two pages each, rather simple terms where I thought it would be more details covering something like who gets what if we find something consumable that is good for our development.
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“So for Chris I need to get something out of the way, the role is harvester but much like when you signed up to come here there is going to be a requirement for you to fight sometimes. We know if you were selected to join the settlement you have some level of combat ability or skills, at a minimum enough for self defence. Ideally speaking you won’t ever fight, and we want you because you're going to have the best rate of extracting cores successfully without damaging them. However if something goes wrong you will be expected to help us handle threats, but you also get an equal quarter of all value found. In the case of a resource that is suitable for the settlement that is counted as a sort of pseudo debt the settlement owes us, then out of anything else we find like cores or materials we can keep them as long as we aren’t withholding anything needed for the settlements development and the settlement gets a full half of the value of total finds before we then split the remaining half. It is really up to us how we determine that split happens, but Mircha will check over our reports and make sure things aren’t going missing or being misbalanced. We are also willing to give you all cores, except those needed for any reason for the settlement, in return for having first claim on your crafting results if they are suitable for us” I was watching Chris read through his paperwork as Kev speak, and judging by the look on his face that promise of a fair split plus access to all cores harvested as first pick had absolutely won him over.
“Yeah this looks really good, it is definitely risky but no more than helping on the hunting trips I already have as a spear user. Being clear my only combat skill is spear wielding, which isn’t amazing for food hunting trips and usually ends with me spear finishing, but should be fine for this kind of thing where it is more about self defence. Consider me in, so what’s the deal for Styx?” Signing with a bit of pencil supplied with the paperwork Chris passed it back over, with Kev collecting it before sitting back down and looking at me.
“For Styx I need to be up front, I am pretty sure Mircha is going to push you to work with our group for at least some of the riskier ventures, as your role from my understanding will be becoming combat healer slash head healer while a town healer works under you. This makes this feel a bit dirty honestly, as it's this or get stuck being made to do hunting runs that aren’t going to reward you as well and are less likely to give you chances to improve your healing skills. We can offer you the same split as Chris, but without the promise of cores of course, along with a promise that your main role will be healing us if something goes wrong with combat as a backup position. Mostly the goal is for you to provide protection for the harvester while we engage any threats, along with any healing required. To sweeten the pot for you though I can let you know Mircha has agreed to let you or I have first pick on anything bloodline related as no one else has a clear visible bloodline active or have asked for support developing one they have”
Checking through the paperwork I could see all of what Kev offered, plus some commitments to not intentionally take risks and no commitment from me for healing outside of my usual duties for injuries not sustained during team activities.
“I am on board with this so far, but I have to ask what is in it for you two? Beyond the split this is still riskier than just working hunts for the settlement and using your own time to look for resources” Resting my hand with the pencil bit against the paper I, hopefully, made it clear I was ready to sign as long as I could understand their own reasoning.
“Bluntly its skill and class development for me, my main skill and whole class is around the idea of treasure hunting. I want to develop this further rather than the ranger aspects, this means I need custom niche cards to merge skills with and to do a lot of hunting to advance my main skill through a few ranks. I can’t get this reasonably any other way, and it's frankly why I even signed up to a low resourced settlement attempt, it's my best shot at my goals” Kev’s reasoning wasn’t surprising, but it was good to be sure.
I was a bit taken back by just how gravely Dergets’s voice was, deep I was expecting but it sounded like the earth had decided to commune with us rather than a hunter. “My family needs fighting skills, from cards, if they are to grow. My brothers are crafters, they make decent money but outside of new settlements combat cards get expensive. Family has always been hunters or guards mostly until recently, so a generation of mostly crafters means we haven’t stock piled weaker combat cards earned early in our careers as much. It's only been myself working on it, so now I have nieces and nephews who desire to follow their grandfather and uncles footsteps, but no good resources for it. I will either take unwanted combat cards of any kind in trade from Chris, or I will trade the resources my split is made up from that can’t be used to get some cards together to send back home when I can safely. I was a guard for a long time, so I am well levelled with good experience, but it was a job that had more stability than moments of opportunity for personal development so that is definitely part of my desire for this as well.” Reasonable and understandable goals, and not something unheard of for a single member of a family to funnel resources into trying to get better skills to other members of their family if they got lucky with a good core or had a good chance to earn some decent money.
Signing the paperwork and passing it over I hoped this was the chance for stable safer growth over the dungeon I thought it was, but I was also heavily trusting Mircha’s judgement of these men and their intentions as being honest in my decision. Suddenly looking down I noticed Ember scrunching part of his front up staring at the mens boots, and looking along I could see they had brought mud in along the stone ground with them, then suddenly ember had climbed over both of their boots faster than anyone could react before he started moving off along eating up the mud off the ground.
“Sorry, this is Ember, his my slime and it seems he's taking keeping our home clean quite seriously here. Please don’t mind him, but at least your boots are very clean now?” Smiling my best smile hopefully they wouldn’t mind too much.