“The wise man names his home as though it will last a thousand years, even if it falls to ruin by the next dawn.” — The Tao of Idleness, Book 3, Verse 27.

I stood in the centre of what I was increasingly comfortable as seeing as my village, surveying the aftermath of the battle. Quite apart from the destruction of the Village Hall and the general churn caused by the running skirmish – an entirely literal description of my signature combat style – it was Dema’s wounds which weighed heavily on us all. Any thoughts I had of being able to upgrade the Medical Hut further to get her up and about were immediately put on hold by the volume of resources needed to repair the damage the Rebels had wrought.

“How in all that is fuckable does it cost more to repair things than it did to build them?” I had asked, allocating all of my gathered resources to the various Repair queues. Even then, we’d come up a bit short.

“That’s just the way things are,” Scar had said, looking at me as if I’d asked why water insisted on being wet.”

“Why don’t I just knock them down and start again if it’s quicker and cheaper to start afresh?”

“Because you’re not a Barbarian from the Frozen Wastes,” Lia had chimed in. “In the civilised world, we don’t cannibalise our settlements when the going gets tough.”

The two of them shared a little smirk at my stupidity which, momentarily, irritated the hell out of me. Lia and Scar’ had come to an uneasy détente – they weren’t going to be swapping makeup tips in the near future, but neither did I worry that they were going to start chopping each other up. That their sole point of connection appeared to be taking the piss out of me wasn’t ideal, but – right now – I guess take it.

So, the resource cupboard was bare again, and there were a bunch of Repair timers running until I could look at properly starting moving things forward. There was just under a day until Wanker wanted an answer, at which point I wanted to be a bit more prepared for what I assumed would be coming next than I had been when Berker waddled into town. The delay wasn’t ideal.

I opened up the Village Interface – most of it was greyed out due to having been smashed into little, tiny pieces – and hovered over the only obvious option I hadn’t selected yet.

Village Naming Unlocked. Please enter a name.

It was time to officially name my village, I guess. At least that was something I could control during this annoying hiatus.

“You’re naming the village now?” Lia’s voice cut through my momentary distraction. She didn’t sound impressed, but then again, when did she?

“Yup,” I said. “Why? Got any brilliant suggestions?”

“You really think this is the right time for that?”

“Sure, why not? If we’re going to be overrun by the Empire in a few days, might as well go down with a nice name.” I grinned. “I was thinking Thunderdome. What do you think?”

Lia just stared at me, unblinking. “You’re serious?”

Her unnecessarily loud tone of derision encouraged Scar to wander over “What’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing much,” I said. “Just deciding on the name of our soon-to-be world-famous village. Got any thoughts?”

“You’re asking me? I figured you'd already picked something awful.”

“It’s a toss-up between Thunderdome, Camp Nowhere and Jamesville.”

Scar winced. “Yeah, those are terrible.”

“Or,” I said, a glint in my eye, “Lazytown.”

Lia groaned. “You’re not going to name this place Lazytown after we just barely survived a battle.”

“Hey, it’s got a vibe. And besides, considering how much lounging around you did in the Medical Hut, I think it fits.”

Lia looked like she was considering drawing her sword, so with a flourish, I typed the name in before anyone could stop me: Lazytown.

Village Named: Lazytown. New Build Options Unlocked.

A nice, shiny new menu flashed up in my vision and I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face. “Oh, hell yeah, we’ve got some Housing options now. And Specialisation for the Pixel Workers is back on the table!”

That got Lia’s attention. “Specialise them how?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I clicked through the options and found one of the little workers hacking away at a tree. “Right here,” I said, “Just like with Bob, I can turn this guy into a Woodcutter. Should boost our wood gain.”

I tapped the screen.

Pixel Worker Specialised: Woodcutter. Resource Gathering Boost: +10%.

“There we go,” I said proudly. “Lazytown is moving up in the world.”

Lia gave me a sideways glance. “Is this really the best use of your time right now?”

“Hey, someone’s gotta keep things running,” I said, gesturing at the bustling village. “Might as well be me. Right, Housing next. It looks like can finally get some proper homes built instead of sleeping in the mud.”

New Build Option: Housing Unlocked. Requires 50 Wood, 30 Stone.

I pressed on the option, toggling the little button that appeared that offered me a rush job for 150 gold. The moment I pressed it, though, the option went red.

Rush Job N/A due to ongoing repairs to the Village Hut.

Fuck’s sake! Someone really was cock-blocking my efforts to pay to win here!

“Fine. We’ll do it the old-fashioned way,” I said, queuing up the building of two Bunkhouses to kick in once repairs were done and resources allowed. “We’re not going to be much of a village without somewhere decent to sleep.”

Housing Construction Queued.

Things were finally looking like they were coming together—sort of. But as I looked at the growing list of options and upgrades, I felt that familiar tug of unease. Sure, I’d named the village, and yes, I was managing to keep everything ticking over thus far, but it all felt bloody fragile. And the Empire was going to be pissed when I told them where to shove it . . . I shoved that thought aside. There’d be plenty of time to worry about that soon.

“Trying to buy your way out of trouble again?” Sacr asked, peering into the sky at the screens I was swiping through.

“Yeah. Seems like even gold’s once again not good enough for the system. Nothing’s going to get built until those bloody repairs are done.”

“That’s the way it goes sometimes. You can’t always shortcut everything.”

“Wouldn’t be a shortcut if it was the main road,” I said. Still, if we were stuck waiting, there were a bunch of other menus I could poke around in while we figured out our next steps. I flipped through the various new options, and one caught my eye:

Steward Role Available.

“Hey, check this out,” I said, pointing up to the screen. “Apparently, I can appoint someone as a Steward for the village.”

Lia and Scar exchanged glances. “What’s a Steward do?” Lia asked, stepping closer to us.

I skimmed through the description. “Looks like they can oversee day-to-day operations. Handle resources, allocate workers, make sure things don’t fall apart.”

“Sounds like a village babysitter,” Scar said. “You planning to skip out on us already?”

“Not at all. It’s just that being Master of this place looks like it has the potential to be a full-time job. And, well, I am much more your flexible working, part-time type. It’d be good to be able to offload some of the day-to-day responsibilities to someone capable.” Yeah, that sounded like shit reasoning, even to my ears. Then inspiration of how to sound less like a waste of space came to mind. “Also, when I was asleep before, the Pixel Workers downed tools. I think another pair of eyes would be ideal.”

Lia cleared her throat. “Also, you need to come back with me to Eldhaven to hand in our Gambler’s Debt quest. If you want to share in the XP and rewards, that is.”

“Really?” I wasn’t wild about going back to that place, to be honest. Now I knew a bit more about the Empire, I didn’t think I wanted to spend another moment in that town.

“Yeah, you can’t exactly send someone else to claim XP on your behalf —you’re the one with the title and the quest link.”

“Right,” I said. “And coincidentally I get an option which will allow me to leave things in capable hands while I’m gone. Nice linear progression to the quest line there.”

Scar sighed, clearly sensing where this was going. “You’re thinking of me, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “You’re the only one here who knows how to actually run a place like this. And your crew listens to you. To be honest, even if I wasn’t going anywhere, I’d still think you were a better option for running this place than me.”

“You sure you trust me with that?”

I gave him a sideways glance. “Would you trust you?”

Scar grinned, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Fair point.”

“Look,” I said, holding up my hands, “I’m not asking for a lifelong commitment. We don’t need to cut our palms or become blood brothers or anything like that. You just need to keep things ticking over while I shoot back to Eldhaven. Make sure no one burns the place down and, you know, build shit.”

Scar considered this for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Alright. I’ll do it. But on one condition.”

“I’m not going to fuck you, mate.”

We had another of those odd moments where the system appeared to intercept what I was saying and give Scar a very different answer. Either that or he was becoming used to my signature conversational style.

“My condition is that you leave me some leeway on resource allocation. I’m not going to be sat around twiddling my thumbs waiting for you to come back. If I see an opportunity to improve things, I’m going to be taking it. And the Medical Hut upgrade is going to be my first priority.”

We all took a moment to consider Dema lying in stasis.

“Fine,” I said, summoning half of my gold from my inventory and dropping it on the ground. “If you ever get the chance to rush anything, go crazy. There seem to be all sorts of restrictions on actually using gold, so take every chance you get. I want Lazytown sparkling when I get back.”

“Deal.”

Steward Appointed: Scar. Permissions Granted: Resource Allocation, Worker Assignment, Build Management.

“That’s that sorted, then,” I said, relieved to have one less thing to worry about. Wasn’t I being efficient today? “Now, let’s work out how to get back to Eldhaven without causing some sort of diplomatic incident . . . ”