I couldn’t sleep when I got back to my cabin, but the trouble light I’d picked up plugged into the new power outlet and lit up the entire place just fine. Electric light lit the place up brighter than the purple glow of the village and I was pleased with my choices. I took the time to unload my messenger bag onto the empty shelves, only keeping the bare essentials with me. Now I’d have room for anything I managed to run into when I was out wandering around.

I put in a crude wooden toilet I hoped to never have to use, and puttered around creating a couple of other things. I didn’t know if any of it would work, but I was hoping it would unlock better upgrades when I went back to the XP store and bought the building. I kept doing what I could to make the place more homey until I’d worked through things in my head. After a couple of hours I was using the router to put a rounded bevel on the edge of the loft and realized I’d drifted into busy work, so I shut off the light and got some sleep.

Morning came with a regret that I didn’t call it a night sooner, but I headed back up to the keep to check in with the rest of the group. Breakfast was wrapping up when I got there, and Debbie nodded at me like she’d been waiting and addressed the group.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what we should do next, as a company, and I’ve got an idea. The other day several of you made suggestions about what we should try and accomplish and instead of putting all our eggs in one basket like we did with the pottery, I think we should try it all. Everyone pick something they think will benefit the group and put in a half day on it. We’ll take longer to finish but in the end we ought to have plenty of stuff completed.”

John cleared his throat and broke in. “If we’re doing this, I’ll still need some people to work with me. Someone has got to start working with the livestock if they’re going to be good for anything, and we really need to get started on planting.”

Jeri raised her hand, “I like animals, I’ll work with the livestock.”

Helen nodded, “Me too, I’m first shift watching them today anyway..”

Steve offered to help John plant, and Kenny joined in. Allison put up her plan to explore the mineral deposit that was on Tim’s map, and Sam joined in on that. Hunter and Debbie decided to keep up making pottery even though it hadn’t turned into much of a trade good. It was just too useful to abandon altogether and everyone had a couple of things they asked them to whip up. I told everybody I was going to start working on a defensive wall and while nobody seemed enthused by the idea, at least no one tried to talk me out of it.

When everyone else took off to start their project, I tried walking the path I’d envisioned for the defensive structure, trying to get an idea of the lay of the land. A straight wall made more tactical sense but if I was doing this all on my own I wanted to take as much advantage of the natural contours as I possibly could. When I had an idea of what I should build I borrowed one of the chainsaws from Debbie and went to work.

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I started up against the cliff and started building from there. The first thing I did was drop the biggest tree I figured I’d be able to drag, then trimmed the extra branches and dragged the trunk to meet the cliff at a right angle. The charge was already down on the saw because of my limited mana pool, which worked out fine because I sat down the saw and pulled my shovel. It seemed like I spent an inordinate amount of time behind my shovel and I wandered what it would take to find a magical alternative or just a ditch witch at the XP store. I dug a ditch parallel to the tree trunk and dumped the spoil on the inside, backfilling to keep the log in place. Once the ditch got to a decent size I laid a couple of sharpened stakes on the log sticking out at right angles. Another smaller log went across the top to hold them down and I continued to backfill. After a few hours I had a good sized ditch that led to a wooden wall with sharp stakes sticking out. You could walk up straight from the inside of the wall and stand on the top, and it would be pure hell trying to come through the ditch and up over the wall if somebody on the inside didn’t want you to. I nodded to myself, satisfied that I’d built something useful, but looking at the length of my first wall and thinking about the size of the encampment I was planning I couldn’t help but sigh. This project might take me weeks to finish.

Worrying about the delay wouldn’t complete it any faster, and I grabbed my saw and started on the next section of wall. I worked steadily with the occasional pause for water or to stretch out my back muscles. If nothing else building walls ought to keep me in good shape, not that I would have turned down access to heavy equipment if it had been available. I was still steadily working hours later when Jeri approached me, leading one of the llamas on a halter.

“Hey, Jack. Meet Buster, he’s out getting to know people and getting used to walking on a lead. He’s going to do our plowing for us after he’s had a little more training.”

“What’s up, Buster? I think you’ve traded up, Jeri, but how is Hunter taking it?”

She turned to the llama and clucked her tongue at him. “You hear that Buster? That’s the sound of someone trying to be funny and failing. You’ll hear it a lot when you’re around Jack. Let’s go back to the pen so you won’t have to put up with it anymore.” She gave me the finger as she led him around in a turn then called back over her shoulder. “It’s midday and they sent us to go round people up to tell them to knock off work. You’ve hurt Buster’s feelings though so you can stay out here if you want to.”

I chuckled at her little performance and headed back towards the keep. Dinner this time was pork chops and rice but access to salt and an oven made it a lot different than the campfire cooking we’d been getting used to. I was wondering how much manual labor I’d gotten myself into after the meal was over, and I drifted over to sit next to Debbie and try to find out.

“Pretty good eats, today. You planning on making me work all these calories off?”

“Definitely, but I’m covered in mud. Making clay is a dirty business, Jack, and I’m off to the showers when I’m done eating. I’ve got mud in places I don’t want it, and I know I’m planning on working more today but I want to be clean for a little while.” She gave an exaggerated sniff and then hit me with an elbow. “You might consider the same thing?”

“You inviting me to shower with you as part of my job?”

“You wish, I’m inviting you to go second. Someone actually put a sign up sheet on the wall in the bathhouse, so it should be easier to get in nowadays. I blocked out a half hour after dinner. I’ll take the first twenty minutes but you can have 10 if you want it.”

I thanked her and finished my food. I was in a hurry to get done and make it back to my place to get a change of clothes since I finally had a straight shot at the shower.