“Hello?” Karl called out.

“It's Sir Karl!” he heard from atop the wall.

There was a loud grinding sound of stone against stone for a minute, and then one of the doors of the gate opened a fraction. “Come in quickly, please!”

“Josh and Annie, then volunteers, then the rest of us,” Karl called out. The party hurried inside, except for Jim and Karl. Jim clearly wanted to take off scouting at once. “Wait, Jim. Let's get the news first so you know which way to go.” The scout reluctantly nodded. They entered, the gate was closed, and then people started shifting large stone blocks against it.

Paul Goodman was one of the ones doing the shifting. Karl headed over to help and put his high strength to use. Paul nodded to him. “Welcome back, Sir.”

“The Safe Zone is still here. You succeeded,” was the first thing Karl said to him.

“We lost the two on the wall,” Paul answered grimly. “And the guardian.”

“Clearly it could have been worse. What was it? Giant moose?”

Paul looked at him in surprise for a moment. “No. It looked kind of like a dinosaur. Big. It could peek over the wall.”

“How long ago?”

“About an hour ago. Right after the announcement of rare spawns.”

“How did you stop it?”

“We almost didn't. It was going to bust its way in eventually. Then Letisha told everyone to stay back, ran up on the wall and did something, so help me it sounded as if she were singing to it, and the creature stopped attacking and wandered off. Whatever she did wiped her out pretty hard, but she saved our asses.”

“Which way did it go?”

“South on Walnut.”

Karl shoved the last stone block into place and stepped back. “The other groups?”

“You're the first ones back.”

Karl nodded, his throat tight.

The second foraging group had Doug, Chenelle, Christine, Alain, Chad and a second level warrior named Ben guarding another six volunteers. Their destination had been the Zip-E-Mart a little under three miles north of Endurance. The third group had Michael, the Williams family, and Mitch and Julie Waller as escorts. They had headed for a health food store called Marten's to the east. Every group had at least some healing, some scouting and some fighters. And fortunately, none of them were traveling along the path the dinosaur had taken.

“Did you get food?”

“Not as much as we'd hoped, but we did get a lot of useful supplies.” Karl frowned. “Where did you get the stone blocks?”

“The spares behind the mews.”

“Sorry, what?”

“The spare building materials. When the Safe Zone was created, apparently it had leftovers after clearing the space for it: some stone and some lumber. They were sitting in a neat pile behind the mews.”

Karl looked around and spotted Josh, who was standing around unsure where to go. “Josh, drop the shelving behind the mews over there,” he said, pointing. “Then drop off the food in the cafeteria kitchen and the office supplies upstairs in one of the offices.” The young man nodded and trotted off.

“Office supplies?” Paul inquired.

“The grocery was already looted by someone else. We found a pharmacy to raid instead. We also killed a couple of giant animals for meat. Where's Jake?”

“In the mews with Letisha at the moment. She doesn't want to leave the egg and he wanted to confer with her. All she would tell me for defense purposes was that she could only handle one big creature at a time and needed a half hour to recover afterwards. Sir...if two of them attack, it's going to take everyone we have to beat the second one.”

“Well, let's just hope the other teams make it back intact. We'll find a way, Paul.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Oh, and Paul?”

“Yes?”

“Could I please get a lesson from you tonight on tactics?”

Paul snorted. “Absolutely.”

Karl nodded, then headed off to the kitchen to drop off the bear and wolf meat. Upstairs, he looked through the available weapons and picked out a few to store in his inventory. Everywhere he went, there were people asking him questions. He gave what reassurances he could, tried to project confidence, then headed off to the mews.

Jake was already outside talking to Josh, who had just unloaded the shelving. He looked up and smiled grimly. “Welcome back, Sir Karl.”

“I'll be out in a minute, then we need to talk at the build pedestal.” The Tinker gave him a thumbs up.

Karl knocked at the entrance, then went inside. Letisha was sitting down, drinking something from a cup. She looked tired. She always looks tired, it seems. Why isn't she bouncing back in half an hour like the rest of us? Is she drawing on something that recovers more slowly?

“Hello, Sir Karl.”

“Letisha, thank you. I hear you saved Endurance a little while ago.”

She smiled at him. There was a small table and two chairs in there now, and the remains of a couple of meals that looked as if they had been bought from the shop. He smelled gravy and it made his mouth water. She noticed and smiled a bit more. “Jake gave me a thank you lunch just now. Sorry if it's distracting.”

“Honestly that sounds like a really good idea. After the day I've had so far, a tasty, filling meal is very appealing. Maybe I'll blow a silver on it, just this once.” Karl looked at her. “Are you all right?”

“I leveled.” Her smile faded. Karl remembered their previous conversation. “It's...really hard, losing my last sister. I miss Clarissa. I needed her. We were a team.” She looked down. “All I want to do is curl up in a ball and cry for a week, but I can't afford to do that. Endurance can't afford it.” She took a deep breath, and forced a small smile back on her face. “The one bright spot is Jake. I'm really grateful to him for visiting me here.”

“Well, you two are our experts on Safe Zone construction. We brought back some material that I hope counts as metal for construction purposes.”

“That would be fantastic.”

“Here's hoping. How's the egg? Can you spare some time away from it?”

She sighed. “I guess so.”

Karl pointed at the sensor on the egg. “I wondered how Jake was able to buy something we'd normally do with radio, if the shop is restricting us to medieval technology.”

“Well, it's like these meals, I guess. You can't really make them with low tech, but they don't disrupt the overall flow of life, they just make it a little easier or more enjoyable. The System doesn't mind us having the small conveniences. We can rent movies, after all. Essentially this thing is just a baby monitor you can program for any species. It won't work outside a safe zone.”

“Hm. Well, I'm going to the build pedestal next. I'd like both you and Jake there to advise me if you can.”

A few minutes later the three of them were in the community center. A small crowd formed around them as they went to the build pedestal and the wireframe hologram came to life. Karl noticed that, predictably, most of the male half of the audience was more focused on Letisha than the hologram. Once in a while, it's good to be old, I guess, he thought, grateful not to be distracted much by her high Allure.

“All right,” Karl said. “First let's talk about what we will need for expansion, and then what we can do now without an expansion.”

“We've already done some planning. Here's our proposal for the new footprint of the Safe Zone.” Letisha held out her hand and concentrated, and the diagram shifted. The surface of the table bore a map of the surroundings. The current outline of the Safe Zone was marked in black, and the proposed expansion in green. Much of the expansion was eastward, away from Walnut Street. Karl squinted as he tried to understand what he was seeing.

“Is that multilevel?”

Jake nodded. “Yes. We're digging into the hill east of us, and the easiest way not to have a cliff overhanging us is to put that part of the Zone itself on higher ground. If we go this way the town will be a series of terraces. We have plenty of stone for stairs and support walls. The alternatives were to go south into the marsh, which I don't think we want, west towards Walnut Street, or build across Post Road to the north, which would either chop up the Zone or chop up the road. We can't expand all that far to the west without having the same problems. So if we're going east eventually, I thought we might start with that and gain the high ground first.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Karl nodded. “It looks good. What do we need?”

“You're the registered owner, so try saying, 'Expand Safe Zone.'”

“Expand Safe Zone,” Karl announced.

You have insufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 1500/1500

Stone: 1500/1500

Metal: 33/1100

Designated power source for Safe Zone: Monster Core – uncommon – good

This power source will sustain four expansions from base.

“Well, at least the metal we brought home counts, but I was hoping for more than 32 units out of it. What will we be able to build from here? Housing?”

“We can add three buildings, looks like. If we make one a barracks and one an apartment building called 'lodging' I think that will be enough for our current population. There are other things too: fields, farms, orchards, greenhouses for food, and then for construction we have a smithy, armory, tannery, and more options will open up as we expand.”

“All right, thank you. Now what can we do in the meantime?”

“Okay, exit that window...” Karl did so and nodded. “Okay, let me see if I can make this list visible to everyone and not just via notifications.” Jake fiddled with something for a minute, then Letisha whispered something to him and he nodded, then it came up. “Thanks.” Karl noticed that Jake was staring at the controls, but Letisha was staring at Jake, just for a moment.

Karl looked at the list for a minute, and other people made comments. “If I understand this, we can replace the gargoyle guardian for a hundred stone?”

“Yes, but that will be about half of our total.”

Karl was confused. “I thought it said we have 1500 stone?”

“For an expansion,” Letisha explained. “If the walls move out we can eat more materials that are in the way. If we're not expanding, all we have is the leftovers we didn't use from last time.”

“So what do we have now, then?”

Letisha reached out and touched something, and the hologram displayed:

Wood: 173

Stone: 212

Metal: 33

Karl mulled the numbers over, then said, “all right, we can expand the shop for ten metal, and replace the guardian. Can we build more housing now?”

“I think we need to expand to do that. We can modify existing structures but not add new ones. With the initial creation all we can have at once are the two buildings that existed before we built Endurance.”

Karl grunted in annoyance. “Can we add a fourth and fifth story of apartments, then?”

Jake and Letisha looked at each other, then spent a while hunting through options. They argued quietly with each other. Letisha demanded the pad and Jake handed it over. She called something up and showed him the result as if it proved she was right. He peered at it, then pointed out something. She turned it around and stared at it.

“Okay, we're both half right,” Letisha muttered loud enough for Karl to hear, handing the pad back.

Karl waited a few more moments, then asked, “Well?”

Jake took one more look at things, then said, “We can build one more story, no more than that. But it will cost 200 wood and 20 metal.”

“So we're twenty seven wood short.” Karl frowned. “What if we chop down a tree across the street and drag it inside the gates? Would it count?”

“I think so.”

Karl looked around at the spectators. “Okay, who wants to be a lumberjack?”

The result was interesting. While several combat classers kept watch from the wall, Jo and Tabitha competed to see who could bring down a tree first. Jo chopped hers with her axe, and Tabitha did a carefully controlled burn around the trunk of hers. It was deemed a tie by onlookers as the trees fell simultaneously. Several people with boosted strength helped carry both trees inside quickly.

The trees together were not quite enough, so Karl requested they have a rematch. In the second round both were faster, but Jo was possibly marginally ahead. Karl thought she was getting the John Henry fan vote but kept that to himself. He marveled at how people could take a tedious chore and turn it into entertainment.

The second round was enough. In the end, they could build the fourth story, replace the guardian, upgrade the shop, and spend another fifty stone to repair the damaged portion of the wall. Karl authorized the build. Well, that just about cleaned us out of materials.

Then he heard screaming. For a moment everyone tensed for battle before they figured out that people on the third floor of the apartment building had no idea what was happening above them. Oops. Someone ran off to explain.

Karl coughed in embarrassment. “In the future, let's warn everyone before we make changes to the safe zone.” A couple of people laughed. At least there was cheering over by the Shop pedestal as it expanded, providing two more terminals.

With that done, Karl tried to think of what else he needed to be doing—besides worry about the other foraging groups, and rare spawns, which he was trying hard not to do. Then he got a welcome interruption.

“Sir Karl!” He turned to see Maria coming down from the second story. “Could I speak with you upstairs for a moment?”

Karl thanked Jake and Letisha for their help, excused himself, and followed the Treasurer to one of the offices. In passing he saw her grab several items from the pile of office supplies and vanish them. As soon as the office door was closed, Maria started talking.

“I have good news, Sir Karl. Do you recall the giant package of spices you gave me to auction for you last night?”

“Yes?”

“It sold three hours ago for twenty-nine gold.”

Karl blinked. He'd felt torn about auctioning it instead of donating it to the kitchen. Now he was very glad of his choice. Twenty-nine gold. That's over half the price of the metal for the expansion!

“In my role as Treasurer, I authorized some expenditures from that which we discussed in last night's meeting, one gold in total. That was as much as I felt comfortable spending on your behalf without consulting you. Please let me know if you object and—”

“That won't be necessary, Maria. I trust you. I do want to hear what you bought, however.”

Maria nodded and flipped open a notebook. “First, twenty silver for ten basic pads, and another ten silver for loading various information into them. Those have been distributed.

“Next, a ten silver starting fund for Jake to work on his sensors idea.” Karl nodded.

“Then a total of ten silver for George to spend on information gathering, on top of the use of several of the pads.

“And finally...” Maria gestured, and from her inventory appeared a shield. It was a duplicate of the one the others had bought him when they barely had a gold or two to their name all together. Karl breathed a sigh of relief, picked it up and strapped it on his arm. He vanished it to inventory, then resummoned it onto his arm.

“Thank you.”

“You really must get armor, Sir Karl. I advise spending some of your new wealth on it. You get chewed up often, sometimes literally, and you're too valuable for the Safe Zone to lose. And if we have to fight rare spawns now...”

“I see your point.” Easy come, easy go. “For just a moment I wanted to enjoy being sixty percent of the way to buying the next expansion.”

“Would you really spend all of your gold to finance the next expansion by yourself?”

“If there's no other way? In a heartbeat. I can earn more money. We must expand to save lives.”

“It should not all be on your shoulders.”

Karl shrugged. “I would prefer otherwise. And anyone else is welcome to contribute.” He paused. “Oh, did any auctions on behalf of the Safe Zone treasury come in well?”

Maria nodded. “Endurance has three gold in its treasury now. That happened shortly after your gold came in and I made the purchases...”

“It's fine. Thank you. I suppose I should go shopping for armor next. You never know when the next crisis will hit.” Karl stood. “Thank you for all you're doing, Maria. I do appreciate it. Oh, and please give George another fifty silver from me for information gathering. I really want that to happen.” Karl sighed. “And I suppose a gold for Paul to improve our defenses, to start him off.”

“Thank you, Sir Karl.”

He nodded and left, heading directly to the Shop lines, which were now much shorter. Someone had already labeled the terminals with 'Express Lane: Two minute limit', 'Center Lane: Five minute limit', 'Right Lane: Take your time.' He smiled and thought about his first purchase, getting into the Express Lane. There were two people ahead of him, and he was accosted repeatedly during his short wait. Apparently people were arguing about who got the twelve new apartments that had opened up and they wanted him to arbitrate. He couldn't think of anything he would like to do less at the moment. I need to put someone in charge of that.

His turn came, and he excused himself. Quickly he sorted through larger swords, and selected what the shop called a bastard sword. It was forty silver, which was a bargain to his thinking. Then he spent most of a minute trying to look at armor before giving up and yielding the station to the next person. He retrieved his purchase, felt its weight, and was pleased. Something to wield two handed. I know I can do more damage than I have been.

Vanishing the sword to his inventory, Karl then got into the five minute line. It took less than fifteen minutes to get his turn, and he started examining armor. He wasn't sure what would be best for him, so he got what seemed to be the most protection for the price, a full set of chain mail with breastplate for under two gold. Beyond that, the price appeared to skyrocket. Since his time didn't seem to be up, he quickly grabbed a few plain shirts, hoping that the System wasn't selling him something figure hugging again.

Heading to his apartment, he peeled himself out of the too-tight shirt that had fit him fine less than a week ago, and put on one of the new System shirts. It seemed to look and fit okay. He would have to ask someone their opinion to confirm. Then he donned his chain mail armor and flexed and moved around in it a bit. It would take a little getting used to, but would not be a hardship to wear. If it would dent the teeth of the next thing that tried to bite him in half, Karl supposed it would be well worth it. He practiced switching it to and from inventory while moving, just to make sure he could grab it with a thought if need be.

His Systemized trench coat was pretty badly shredded, and he tossed it into a corner rather than try to figure out laundry right away. It had served him well from his very first fight, but it was clearly outclassed by the opponents he faced regularly now.

Karl tried to imagine what a fight against a rare spawn would entail. He suspected it would take the combined might of all the combat classers Endurance had, just to take one down. He noted, again, that they only had two regular mages and one pyromancer for offensive spells, and still only three healers besides himself. We need more spell casters.

I've got about twenty four gold now, and plenty to spend it on besides metal. He wondered again if there was any reasonable way to get metal short of buying it.