"The clever man learns to wait, but the fool rushes forward. Yet even the fool sometimes finds himself winning the race." — The Tao of Idleness, Book 7, Verse 1.

The Medical Hut’s soft hum, punctuated by the rhythmic thud of my two workers hitting trees, brought me back to consciousness. If anyone is wondering what it feels like to trade HP for a brief Worker Surge, I’m going to do my best to explain it. Remember your biggest, baddest, most Ogrish school bully. Picture them running up to you and blooting you in the nads as hard as they possibly could. Then add in a massive crowd of anyone you’ve ever had a crush on standing around your mewling body, pointing and laughing and your squashed member. That will give you an entry point to the soul level of pain I was currently in.

+5 HP restored via Medical Hut

Idle XP Gains: No applicable. Offline due to fucking stupidity

What? Hang on! Did it just say what I think it did?

+5 HP restored via Medical Hut

Idle XP Gains: No applicable on this occasion.

Hmmm.

It appeared that whatever boost Worker Surge had caused had finished, and I was back to my standard two pixelated figures hammering away on the trees. Considering the agony I was in, I wasn’t sure the little boost to productivity it had caused was really worth it.

“What the fuck happened there?” I asked an uncaring universe, flipping open my stat sheet. Good news, I was at 98% towards Level 4 which felt like good progress. Defeating Balethor, along with all my other incidental gains, had clearly pushed me on the way. Again, I felt this must be an extraordinary pace of development if the other Dungeon Delvers I’d met were only Levels 8 and 9. The bad news was that I seemed to only have 25 HP. Whatever the Well of Ascension had taken in terms of ‘Resources’, it had nearly been enough to wipe me.

Which was terrifying. I’d basically nearly killed myself because I was fiddling with things I did not understand. Somehow, I was sure The Great Slacker would have a pithy little quote about avoiding doing precisely that . . .

The path of wisdom is wide, yet some still find ways to trip over their own feet. The sage may wander, but the fool insists on running headfirst into the wall. It is not the world that makes you suffer—it’s your insistence on being a fucking moron.

Okay. I guess I pretty much deserved that.

As the pain was beginning to subside, I stood, and the interface flickered in front of me again as if waiting for its next command. I wasn’t sure I was too keen to play this game anymore. “It’s not like I’m exactly winning any prizes here,” I said to myself, glancing at the meagre gains all my pain had caused me. True, I now had enough to make the Village Hall, but that would pretty much wipe me out again. If that wasn’t enough to get me back on track with the building pre-requisites – and I doubted on its own it would be because, you know, this world seemed to fucking hate me – then I really wasn’t that much further up on the game than before I put my balls into the blender.

I glanced towards the building in which Lia was again. She still hadn’t stirred.

“Come on, stop fucking moping. How hard can this be?” I said to one of my workers who, to his credit, completely ignored me. In the face of his colossal indifference, I chose to reflect, internally on my lot, for a while. Okay, so my life has basically become an RTS base-builder. You know what? That’s not so bad. I’d idled away the hours on enough of these not to be completely fucking useless here. Although, the more I thought about it, it was a bit more complicated than that, wasn’t it? I had an injured Lia. A ticking-clock until she needed to be well. It seemed that her Empire was pretty damn suspicious of me, whilst at the same time, the Rebellion hated me, and, after we’d wiped out one of their leaders, that probably wasn’t going to be fixed soon. And then there was me and my little start-up village somewhere in between; I had to carve out a place where we wouldn’t get obliterated the second someone noticed us.

“Why does everything I do turn into some world-spanning clusterfuck?” I muttered, pacing the perimeter of the small clearing that surrounded the well. The Well itself continued to hum with an unsettling energy, a faint pulse that seemed to echo every now and then. Yeah, I’m not falling for that one again, mate. I’m going to be nicely levelled up before we do the whole ‘trade health for resources’ thing again.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Just to confirm the direction my brain was going, I scrolled through the Village Interface, examining what little I had to work with. The options were limited, locked behind what seemed to be invisible barriers or requirements that I didn’t fully understand.

“Right,” I muttered, rubbing my face with both hands. “Think. What did the Great Slacker say? Oh wait—nothing helpful, as usual.”

The interface flickered again, prompting me to consider the available options. One thing stood out: resource gathering was infinitely slow – due to the debuff - but the Medical Hut seemed to be running just fine, even though I had no idea what it was powered by. I should have built something practical like a resource-gathering structure or, hell, even a storage unit. But no, my instincts had shoved me straight into "heal-the-girl" mode, skipping past the basics.

Idle Gains: +5 Health restored

Well, my HP was improving, and with it my clarity of thought. I didn’t need to wait any longer. I might as well commit the resources I had to make the Village Hall. Worst case scenario, this was just the first of the pre-requisites I needed before I’d forced the Medical Hut in. If so, no harm, no foul. You never know, I might even get lucky and it be the only pre-requisite. Yeah, because luck is really my middle name right now.

I mentally pulled up the screen and saw a schematic of a small building on the edge of the clearing spring up. It wasn’t all that much bigger than the Medical Hut, but was obviously more ‘important’ in some intangible way. Its outline was green, as I had just enough resources to cover the building costs, so I went for it.

Village Hall

Level: 1

Health: 500/500

Durability: 100%

Function: Administrative Centre

Construction Time: 4 hours (Instant via Well of Ascension resources. Gold N/A at this time)

Workers Required: 2

Village Buffs (When Active):

Resource Collection Efficiency +10%

Increases the efficiency of resource gathering (Wood, Stone, Food) by 10%. Idle gains increase proportionally.

Worker Production Boost +5%

Pixel workers produce 5% more per hour, increasing overall productivity.

Storage Capacity +500 Units

Increases village resource storage for Wood, Stone, and Food.

Village Management Interface Unlocked:

Workers: 2/20

Current Projects: Level 1. None Active

- Hunter's Lodge (0% Complete)

- Storage Shed (0% Complete)

- Medical Hut (100% Complete)

Reputation Panel

- Empire: Suspicious (-5)

- Rebellion: Hostile (-10)

- Fame: +15

Abilities (when active):

- Assign Tasks:

Allocate workers to projects, resource gathering, or defence. (Max workers: 10 in each)

- Upgrade Path (Available Upgrades):

- Village Hall Level 2: Increases resource gathering boost to 20%, unlocks the ability to build advanced structures (Barracks, Forge). Mana cost: 400.

- Defensive Perimeter: Reinforces the village’s defences and adds 200 health points to the Village Hall. Costs 150 Stone.

- Quest Board:

Assign quests or contracts for mercenaries to improve village defences or resource gains. Can attract NPCs for side missions (Unusable until Village Hall reaches Level 2).

Village Reputation Overview:

- Empire Influence: Building the Village Hall has drawn the Empire’s attention, increasing the likelihood of an envoy.

- Future quests may be Empire-related, and completion will increase standing.

- Rebellion Influence: The Rebellion has noted the expansion of infrastructure, increasing hostilities.

- Skirmishers may appear at the village’s boundaries, attempting to sabotage or hinder progress.

Idle Gains (when active):

+5 Wood / +4 Stone / +3 Food (Per cycle)

The workers immediately moved over towards the space where the Village Hall was planned to sit, flickering in and out of focus as they carried out their tasks. I didn’t have direct control over them—not yet, anyway—but they seemed content to make a start.

The sun was starting to set – how long had I been unconscious! - casting shadows across the clearing. My Pixel Workers continued their endless tasks, their movements almost hypnotic in the fading light. I could hear the faint hum of the well behind me, pulsing with that strange energy I still didn’t fully understand.

Four hours until the Village Hall was ready. Well, nothing to do but hurry up and wait . . .