The next week passed fairly normally, working away at training daily with Sula, trying to get out and say hello to some people I hadn’t really met properly yet,all while Bren managed to get some more houses, moving Horusum to officially be a village. Upgrading to a village didn’t bring any real improvements, apparently those would come later with higher ranks with some extra bonuses for settlement defence along with crafting and production of resources within the area.
Although it was nice seeing a clear upgrade to the settlement to reflect the hard work going into it, even if my own contribution was rather minor overall.
Settlement upgrade notice: Settlement has reached the rank of Village.
Currently I was waiting at where the path we had taken to the settlement entered into our ‘main road’ which was mostly a cleared space that ran through the settlement over to the mountain side my cave resided in although I was a bit off to the side of the main road.
The road had been cleared quite a bit since our arrival, with semi-regular traders coming to bring the supplies we needed plus the odd new person to join our settlement, it made sense it has been improving.
This morning though I was waiting for the merchants to arrive because my new healer should be coming. I had read through the letter sent ahead with Mircha, and while he was a little older than I am he had only levelled by healing in a safe environment with only bare minimal self defence training. So he was level 7, but really set up to be a protected town healer. This should hopefully compliment my more combat healer methods, and act as a nice safety net in case I was out of mana and somehow we also had no healing potions or materials during an emergency.
It might have seemed paranoid to bring in a backup healer already, I had even expressed as much to Mircha during our conversations since, but as he raised with a settlement that is new having more healers or combat personnel then the normal ratio would help if it was needed. And if it wasn’t needed, then we should be thankful, but better to be thankful we were paranoid then cursing that we weren’t prepared enough.
Even with the next town only being a half day’s travel, or closer to four hours for someone like me who could run on and off most of it, that was a lot of time to travel in an emergency or at night where attacks became more likely. So it was generally accepted to be better to pour resources into being able to self solve any issues, rather than have to depend on the next closest settlement.
Seeing the merchant's wagon coming up, and a few people walking along beside it, I got up and picked up Ember. Poor little guy had been fussing all over the second bedroom since I told him someone new was moving in with us, which while adorable was frustrating when my own slime was demanding we somehow prevent any dust build up inside of a cave.
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“Hey, Artis?” Walking up to the only man who looked under forty in their group, and hoping I hadn’t misread the info Mircha shared with me and hadn’t somehow ended up with someone over forty but lowered level then I am to help, I looked him over. A little taller then I was, which was still short for most men, with mousy brown hair and bright green eyes he looked a lot like the occasional junior healer we would see in town when they would go visiting door to door offering free healing while trying to level some early skills.
“Yes, hello, Styx I take it? Please meet you, and thank you for accepting me to the role, I look forward to getting to know you” shaking hands. I was pleased to feel some strength in his grip. While ideally he was never going to go anywhere near anything dangerous, I would also be trying to convince him to take some time to practise a little with Sula and myself just in case of a wave event or any other incidents.
After waiting while Artis grabbed his baggage from the merchants wagon, only a basic knapsack that he said contained some books and his clothing needed, I started showing him around the settlement while we got talking.
“I grew up in one of the church orphanages, it's why I jumped at the chance to join a new settlement, my class is specifically good at disease and illness along with mental health conditions, so I wasn’t going to get a chance to really join a team to found a new settlement even with so many active at any time. But I wanted to try to help create a similar kind of system for a newer settlement, as I know in a lot of even cities not all orphaned or abandoned children get cared for or any real resources dedicated to their growth” While chatting Ember had decided Artis could carry him, so I had grabbed his knapsack, and it was clear he was used to tames or pets of some description by the way he was absently petting Ember while chatting.
“So you want to start an orphanage here? Honestly we have no children here at all yet, I don’t think they let kids come into new settlements until after the first year, but I don’t know we have that much room in the cave honestly” voicing my concerns I hoped I wasn’t already finding problems between us, but it definitely was worth voicing just in case there was some misunderstanding.
“Oh no, sorry, no. I mean if there were children in need I would definitely dedicate my own resources to helping them and hopefully develop something for them. No its more once I am established here, and the settlement passes the one year mark, I can request up to two helpers from the Church who will be younger children in the churches care. This gets them a job in a newer settlement where they have a real chance to make something for themselves, rather than being stuck as a labourer for some mine or farmland where they can only earn enough to barely support themselves”
Nodding as he spoke I could definitely agree, and the conviction in his voice made it clear this was a strong desire of his to be able to give something to kids in need like he had been. “That is more than agreeable, honestly I didn’t really think about what happens to any kids the church takes in, just that a few of the kids in my classes lived within the church home with the local priest. Anyway, this is our home, the cave is related to my bloodline, when you enter the prompt should give you everything you need to know. Once you have your room and a chance to put away your stuff I will add you to the staff list so you can get the perks to, then we can take Ember over for dishwasher duty while we chat about the plan for the next few days”
As soon as dishwasher duty was mentioned Ember leapt out of Artis’s arms and charged ahead in the cave, before stopping and bouncing around to show his displeasure with our lazy pacing. Judging from the laughter Artis was failing to hold back these two would get along at least, which was a good sign for the near future.