Year 1567-8, winter.
The trip to the coast took about two weeks during which Iria took a few breaks to hunt powerful monsters or do actions her goddess asked her to do. Like all the other heroes, she had a party of about twenty people with her who were about level 50, which was higher than her but her powerful class meant she could pretty much already take them all at once.
The adventurers who followed her knew there was this disparity in power yet would do their utmost to stay with her and follow on her adventure. They all had rare classes but through adventuring and special circumstances, they could maybe one day evolve their class to epic or legendary rank, thus becoming practically immortal.
Luca never got close to them, but he did spend a lot of time talking with Iria and getting to know her better. In this fantasy world, there was something uniquely comforting in the company of fellow earthlings. He spent a good part of the trip drafting architectural blueprints, planning, or teaching Yurro. He had grown quite fond of the teenager who had an eagerness to learn only matched by his own.
The country they went through offered spectacles beyond anything Luca had ever imagined. He saw fountains going up in the skies, mountains made of sand held together by trees going hundreds of meters in the sky and whose roots had an ability to hold all things close to them through gravity. He discovered monsters, from the classical wild beast to more mythical creatures such as trolls, sphinx, or things that had no name on Earth. It was a world of wonder outside the city, a world of the unknown and maybe he could understand those who chased the thrill of adventure. Maybe, just maybe.
One night their camp was attacked by vampiric rats and he understood why he didn’t want to fight directly. The smell of blood and the visions of crazed eyes rodents jumping at him to suck on his life didn’t leave him for days. When he tried to talk about it to Iria she just laughed it off telling him to man up a bit. Even Yurro didn’t understand why he was so shaken. This was just normal life in the wild.
When they reached the coast, Jordi was already there installing thousands of refugees, would-be settlers, and orphans into tents with the help of Helena. They were glad to see he had arrived and the four of them immediately went inside a tent at the center of the camp for a meeting, Jane being due to arrive in only a few weeks with a caravan of people.
After the greetings and the sharing of general news, they got down to business. Helena was the first to breach the subject.
“Ok, if it’s fine with you two, let’s get to planning. I didn’t expect things would be this messy this fast. Luca, we said it’d be your job to organize a town here in preparation for our departure, so how do you want to proceed?”
Time to shine thought Luca. “Can you guys tell me first what you have already done and what I’m dealing with?”
“We currently have three thousand five hundred and two people, a mix of orphans which we brought with us, people who heard of our project and want to emigrate for various reasons, and refugees from villages that have been destroyed by monsters,” Jordi said. He had been the first to set camp as he had found the location during one of his trips. “As you might have noticed during your travel, the kingdoms have yet to recover complete control of their countryside which leads to lots of people losing their homes and moving around. New people come in every day and we are feeding them and housing them as best as we can but we are clearly being overrun.”
“Ok, what about our resources? Do we have lists on them and people managing them?”
“Someone in my party is managing the distribution of food but as things are going we have enough for one more week before we need to start importing food. As for construction resources, I ‘ve sent groups logging and another establishing a quarry. For the water, we have a river which runs by and is purified by life mages.”
Luca thought for a bit on what to do and the others waited in silence. “I think I’ll need to take a look around to see what we should do. Can you guys send all the people who have managed our resources so far for a meeting here tonight, I’ll have a plan ready by then. Iria do you want to come with me to look around?”
“Yeah sure thing. See you guys later !”
At that they all left to do, Yurro was waiting for Luca outside the tent alongside some of Iria’s party members. They spent the day surveying the land, talking to a few people to get a feel of what was going on and what they could expect from them.
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Jordi had chosen a location in a bay where a river met the sea on the northwest side of the continent. The Lizardmen continent was up north, while their continent was closer to the southern pole of the planet. It would be a three-month journey to reach it but it was pretty much as close as they could get without encroaching on major kingdoms and existing ports. The location wasn’t perfect, but it was protected from storms by the high cliffs which encircled the bay and if dams were built in front of the sea they would be protected from any inundations. The river that brought them water wasn’t big by any account but it could surely provide water for tens of thousands of people. Lastly, the soil was a bit sandy but stable enough to build upon.
Having collected his data, Luca went back to the central tent where about fifty people were waiting for him while chatting loudly. As he got in all conversation stopped and everyone moved to their places around a circular table. The more important people were seated while others stood. A few months ago, Luca would never have been able to talk about this many people, but his time with the crafter had helped him overcome his uneasiness and, though he wasn’t comfortable, he felt he could do it.
He took his place next to Helena at the table, Iria sat to his left and pressed his hand under the table in encouragement. He thanked her with a smile as Helena introduced them.
“For those who don’t know them, here are Luca and Iria who are members of our hero party. Luca is in charge of all civilian affairs and will be the one to manage the colony once we set sail. He’ll also install our town here for the time before we leave.”
Helena sat down after that, motioning for Luca to take charge. He could feel her eyes on him. This was also a test to see if he could live up to his promises. Luca got up and cleared his throat.
“Thank you, Helena. I’m not familiar with many people here but if you guys are the ones running the everyday affairs we’ll probably get to know each other better in the coming days. Now, let’s get straight to business. First, I’ll need everyone to take an oath of secrecy about my class and the skills I’m going to show.”
The oaths were taken without much difficulty as everyone present was either already in on the secret of his class or tightly linked to their oversea project. Once the oaths were pronounced, Luca used his [Virtual Modelization] to project an approximative image of the terrain and the tents on it.
“Here’s an image of our actual state of affairs. As you can see, we currently have hundreds of logs waiting to be used in the west of the encampment as well as a fair quantity of stones. Our food is stocked in the middle while we have people planting tents everywhere. The hygiene is disastrous and as we have no infrastructure at all people cannot start to work and are waiting for something to happen. The situation is bad, but we can fix it rapidly if we act in a coordinated manner.”
All around the table people were looking at his projection. In a world of magic, it was nothing impressive but the level of detail was great he highlighted each feature as he talked, allowing everyone to easily follow his explanations.
“The first step is to clear all the tents for a square kilometer around our current headquarters so that we can build the essential buildings. I want to start by building woods and stones workshops as well as a few smithies for making and taking care of tools.” The model transformed before him to replace tents with the building he listed which were positioned in a square around the headquarters tent, a good one hundred meters away. The square had eight spots left open for a wide road, one at each angle and one on each side. “We’ll also need to build a warehouse to stock the food and a few bakeries and restaurants to allow for better food processing. For the time being, everyone will continue to sleep in tents as we’ll focus all our resources on building essential infrastructure. Does anyone have any questions so far?”
“What about the blueprints for the buildings? ” Asked a man in his fifties.
“I have already drafted blueprints for all the buildings listed, they are all uncommon rank and can be understood by anyone with skills in construction. For the first days, I’ll personally direct the construction crews. Any other question?”
There was a few other details questions which Luca answered before he could go on with his presentation.
“We’ll also need to standardize our human resources. I want a list of everyone in the encampment and we need to install patrols to intercept any newcomers and redirect them for registration. The list must state an approximative level and the type of class so that we can allocate human resources. We need to form construction crews tonight to be able to start working immediately tomorrow. Also, we’ll need everyone to take an oath of secrecy.”
“I’ll put the patrols in place and raise a militia.” Jordi volunteered.
“Perfect, I’ll put my assistant Yurrol in charge of the registration but I’ll need someone to take care of the oath with him. People should take the oath as they registered.” A paladin volunteered to participate.
“Now, for the last issue we need to deal with. How are we on money?”
Well as it turned out, feeding and housing thousands of people would quickly run their economy dry. Rare monsters parts sold well, but they could only sell so many. As it was, they would run out of money in a month at this rate. They needed to get a basic economy started fast or stop their importation of food.