Felix woke up in the morning and ran through his workout routine and run. By the time he finished, Noah and Amelia were no where to be found. Felix figured they were still sleeping so he went to practice spells in the court yard. He wanted to go grind the combat dungeon to the south, but he wanted to let them know before he left. Also he hoped he might be able to convince them to start work on developing his town while he was out.
Today he practiced trying to construct two spell forms at once. He wasn't quite there yet, he could construct one spell form and hold it stable. When he tried to hold one while constructing a new spell form, the construction of the second spell form took too much of his focus, which caused the original spell form he had constructed to fall apart.
He figured he should be able to make holding a spell form second nature or decrease the concentration required to construct a spell form, ideally he did both.
After a few hours of training Noah walked out of the castle into the courtyard.
"Good morning, you guys sleep ok?" Felix asked.
"Yeah, very well thanks. Being inside again is… comforting." He responded, then after a few moments continued, "If you don't mind, what are you doing?"
"Practicing casting spells. I do it whenever I have free time. I am hoping to be able to cast two spells at once." He replied.
"Oh I thought you just cast spells out of your spell list, didn't realize it required anything. I am pretty sure that's what all the casters we camped with did." Noah said.
"I don't have a spell list, I'll have to look into that and see about using it later on if it's better."
"I see. We were wondering if you wanted to talk about our professions, the future you're imagining for the town and bringing people from our old camp here? If you have the time." Noah asked.
"Yeah sure sounds good to me. We can talk in the throne room, since that's where managing the town happens." Felix responded. They walked up into the throne room where they found Amelia loitering about.
"Do you mind if I pull out some chairs? I had to make something to level my profession and I didn't want to start with a house yet so I built some furniture. Not much use for camping in the woods though." Amelia asked.
"Of course you can, feel free. I'm gonna see if there is anything to help with planning the town on the management screen." Felix replied.
Felix walked over and sat on the throne. Opening and scrolling through the management screen he found exactly what he was looking for. Actually, reading through the description, it was better than what he had hoped for.
A miniature replica of the entire town was projected into the air in front of the throne. It also encompassed an area of about a kilometer or so outside the mountains in every direction. Using the console from the throne, Felix zoomed in until the buildings inside the town were visible.
"That is awesome." Noah said in awe.
"This should make it easier to plan out the town. I'll be honest I don't have any experience with this so if you could tell me what we should do or give me recommendations, that would be much appreciated. My initial thoughts are start with basic housing. If we could fix up a warehouse or something like that, people can sleep there until we get houses fixed. They could also stay in the castle, but I don't know how many people there will be so I can't say if they will all fit." Felix explained.
He continued saying, "At the same time we should start building out farms just outside the mountains in the plains, if we can, I know nothing about soil. Then people can move into houses and the food from the farms can be stored in the warehouse. I figure we can figure out where to go after that when we get closer to it becoming a reality. At least those are my initial thoughts, you're the expert though, what do you think?"
"That seems reasonable. We should probably designate an area as residential then we can make the houses there. I like towns that are split into sections myself, but we can definitely do something where it is all jumbled together if you'd prefer that." Noah offered.
"Nope, sections sounds logical and makes the town easier to navigate, I definitely like that. You can choose where the residential section should go, I don't really care. Whatever you think makes the most sense is fine by me." Felix replied.
"Ok if you're alright with that then I think storage and industry should be closest to the castle. Then houses off to the right in the little pocket area between these two mountains. Then the commercial area can go right on the front edge of the town near the entrance. Downsides are transporting goods from farms is a pain, but it makes shops the first thing visitors will see. Putting the residential section here pulls it to the side away from the main thoroughfare and transporting of goods." Noah explained.
"Sure sound great." Felix said, then turning to Amelia, "You good with all that?"
"Doesn't matter to me. Any amount of building helps with my profession and it's all pretty similar anyways." She replied.
Felix messed around with the management screen and had the different sections all colored in with an overlay. Then he found a setting so he could give permissions for others could plan things out and make changes on the map, and they could do it on the map directly, they wouldn't need to use the throne. He gave Noah permission.
"Now you should be able to change things on the map from here. Though, I don't know how." Felix shrugged.
"Oh cool thank you. Uhm, are you ok with us bringing anyone who wants to come from the old camp back here?" Noah asked.
"Yeah of course, anyone is welcome. Would also probably make building easier so it isn't just Amelia trying to finish everything herself. I'm planning on grinding some class levels in the dungeon to the south, do you guys need anything from me before I do that? If I am not here or even if I am, Amelia I take it you go to Noah to figure out what to build next. If there are any problems I should be back in a few days so hopefully you can wait, otherwise I trust you two to figure it out. I officially knight you two, co-mayors, while I'm away." Felix said.
"Uh, thanks. What happens if you die?" Noah asked.
"Not sure, let me see if I can set a successor, then hopefully The System will notify you." Felix went over to the throne and found a setting to do just that. He set Noah as the successor.
"Alright, I set Noah as the successor, I figure you're the city planner so it makes the most sense. So, if I die, good luck." Felix smiled.
"Uhm ok then, please don't die. If another fort decides to try and conquer us, I don't want to be responsible for their lives." Noah explained.
"You think forts are going to try and conquer each other? Actually yeah, that will likely happen. Didn't really think of that. Guess we should start repairing the wall around the town when we get a chance." Felix said, then after a few moments of silence he continued, "Ok, I am off to the combat dungeon, you guys are going to go bring anyone who wants to back here, right? They can stay wherever they want in the castle. Don't burn down the town or anything while I'm gone." Felix finished as he walked down the stairs and out of view.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"Oh by the way, if you wanted, I brought a bath robe into the tutorial. I don't need it and well… you know, if we're bringing people back here and you show up…" Noah said.
"If you really don't need it, I would really appreciate that. I really don't want to be naked, I swear. I just hadn't found anything yet." Felix explained.
Noah gave Felix a soft white bathrobe from his inventory and Felix put it on immediately. It was a little too big as Noah was over half a foot taller than Felix, but it was definitely better than nothing.
Now that I have a robe, it's like I am a real wizard.
This town stuff is great, hopefully this means shit will happen while I'm gone. Also hopefully I can allocate things for them to do while I'm gone so I can focus on things I want to do. I wonder if any of the caster's they are bringing will have spells I can leech off them, I hope so.
Felix spent the rest of the day speed walking to the combat dungeon. He stowed the robe before heading out as he didn't want to damage or dirty it, they were his only clean and, relatively, presentable clothes. He stopped at the stream to fill his canteens, bathe and wash his fox skin briefs. He made it to the dungeon in half the time, meaning he still had a few hours before nightfall. He didn't need the daylight for anything, but the time saved was more time to grind, so he went inside.
Let's do the highest difficulty again. Any chance you can use more fantastical creatures? Things from earth are a little boring. I want to see and experience new things. Also, no I will not claim my reward this time.
Felix didn't expect that to work but he figured he would give it a shot. Something other than just an open arena would be more interesting and be easier on someone without great defense. He could get cover, high ground, be sneaky and other advantages.
Affirmative. Recalibrating, one moment please. Warning: Battlefield complexity is increased from class Lvl 10 onwards. Felix heard in his head.
Huh, sweet.
After a few short moments Felix found himself inside the same arena as before. Instead of an empty circle, the arena was filled with a vast forest much thicker than the one he was dropped in at the start of the tutorial. The trees seemed too tall to fit within the ceiling of the arena from last time, but he couldn't see the ceiling through the leaves this time, for all he knew it was taller this time to accommodate. The floor was indistinguishable from a forest floor this time as well. The walls extended out from the wall where he exited to either side though he couldn't tell if the arena was the same shape as before.
Felix carefully ventured through the forest, careful with every step not to trip. He stepped over roots and around trees for just over a minute when he spotted a ramshackle wooden tower. The entire construction was made of minimally processed logs with uneven cuts on either end. The foot print of the tower was a square three meters to a side and stood just over ten meters tall. On each level sharpened wooden stakes stuck out at different angles though Felix wasn't sure what melee creature they defended against at that height. On the top two levels there were logs missing in the walls that functioned as arrow slits.
Walking around the base of the structure were goblins. They averaged a meter tall and their skin only had a slightly green tint. They were thin, wearing raw animal hides and wielded spears and shields. Creeping around the trees to stay out of sight Felix prowled closer. Looking closer at the hides the goblins on watch duty wore, Felix managed to figure out what the spears mounted around the structure were defending against. The hides they wore were all from monkeys. Mounted on spears around the base of the structure were heads belonging to what Felix would describe as sabretooth monkeys. A lot of the heads were evidently fresh as they still dripped blood from the severed end.
[E - Common] Goblin Warrior (Lvl 15)
I thought I chose the harder difficulty, as in +2 - +5. Why are we starting at +5. If there are any more stages than this then this should be a higher difficulty. Unless there was a difficulty higher than before that I accidentally chose. Also possible the difficulty ranges changed either because I hit caster 10. It did change the arena. Maybe it adjusted the ranges to better suit me? Probably changed because of my level, damnit, I should have let it show me the screen. Oh well.
Ok, so it's a goblin outpost of some kind. There's an unknown number of them inside with some that are likely archers or mages considering the arrow slits. My best bet is likely luring them out then picking them off as they come out. I need to make it so the exit funnels them out slowly, if ten of them walk out at once, I'm screwed. Also I need to make it so they can't just use the arrow slits to pick me off.
I could try to smoke them out but then I'm gambling on them not having a chimney or some way to vent it out. Considering the monkey attacks, if they do have a vent on top, it has to have a trapdoor they lock. If I could get up there and lock it from the outside that would work, but I have no way of getting up there, I definitely cannot climb one of these trees. There are other issues though, I would need to light a large bonfire within the first floor of the building, that means I have to get in. I could try to light the outside but it is difficult to light wood by itself. With a camp fire for example, you always need to start the fire with kindling and build it up until you can throw a log in, even then it doesn't light sometimes. Any wood that is freshly cut will never burn, it's way too wet. So where would I get kindling? I could use a whole lot of tree sap, but I would need a lot.
So it's back to luring them out. It's either the carrot or the stick. If I threaten them it's either fight or flight. They may try to turtle themselves inside the building and I do not have the resources to solo siege that building. So I'm left with the carrot. I have many corpses in my inventory, I could make a roast to try and lure them out. The question is why wouldn't they just try and steal the food and bring it back to eat it? I need to seem like I am protecting the roast so they send a hunting party, then I either run in and kill whoever is not in the hunting party, hopefully the weaker ones, or set a trap for the hunting party and take them out. I don't think I can lure them far enough away to keep the hunting party from running back to protect the others. I don't have poison of any kind, that would have been great. So I need to trap the hunting party.
If they see the trap coming or it doesn't kill them right away they will either call reinforcements or notify the others to turtle. Having them summon more reinforcements out of the tower would be nice but I can't risk them turtling. I could make it seem like the trap is unmanned, but would they be smart enough to realize it wasn't there just a day ago? Gambling on that could cost my life so let's assume the worst, that they're very intelligent. They could also have protocols for everyone else to turtle while a hunting party is out. That wouldn't even require high intelligence, it's just common sense. Is there any other reason to leave? Going to the bathroom, but they may just use a bucket then empty it once a night from the roof. Seems like my best bet here is to wait until they sleep then try to take them out stealthily. My Mana Bolt doesn't make too much sound but it likely won't kill them outright, they could just scream for help.
I guess I have daggers, ugh. So I wait for night, take out the guards one by one then try to catch them all sleeping and take them out too? That's so lame though. I wish I knew more about magic so I could craft some cool spell to handle this. Like a sleeping gas then pour it in from the top. What if they don't have a night watch? What if they just lock the door and sleep? Seems silly but humans do that at cabins, cottages and their own homes all the time. Homes have police nearby and alarm systems, but they didn't always. Cabins and cottages often don't. If they aren't expecting an assault they may do that. So how do I get in if they do? It's most likely barred with a log so I could blast it off with a well positioned spell but that would be really loud.
Last option is somehow take down the whole structure. If I could take a tree down on top of it that would be great, but I don't think that's happening anytime soon. Actually, what if I slowly take out the ropes holding all the logs together? Hopefully the building collapses entirely or they evacuate while repairs happen just in case.
Felix waited for the guards to finish their rotation and sit back at the front door. Having observed them for a little while, he knew they shouldn't perform another scouting rotation for at least ten minutes. He had spent time covering himself in the best camouflage he could manage using mud, sticks and leaves. He figured there might scouts on the top floor as well as the guards so he did his best to hide himself and move slowly. He managed to make it within touching distance of the building without alerting anybody. Either scouts on the top floor didn't exist or were lazy.
The building was held together with hemp ropes tying everything together. The logs making up the walls of the ground floor were stuck into the ground at least a foot each. The next floor though, had no ground to stick logs into. The logs of every floor above the second were held together using the ropes alone.
I could cut those using mana bolts, would they notice though? Probably, it would reverberate through the wood. Agh, this is all too complicated. I have to be over thinking this. Let's just go with the plan the most likely to succeed and figure it out from there. Also, screw the carrot, I'm not wasting a boar body on this. . . . . .