Sam looked at the upgrade token curiously. Tobias Schneider appeared at Rick’s elbow as if out of thin air. The other Mars Expedition NCPs started drifting over, and soon the whole crowd had gathered around Rick and Sam.

“Will it upgrade the crafting space?”

“How many more retinue can we have?”

“I want a job!”

The chatter washed over Rick, and he couldn’t help but smile. He took one last look around the clearing at the team.

His team.

Then he handed the token to Dr. Schneider. The behavioral psychologist took it reverently in both his hands. The chatter died away as everyone looked at it for a moment, and then it glowed and vanished in a cloud of sparkles.

The sparkles grew brighter as they rose high into the air, splitting and dividing, until there were a hundred times more. Then they fell on the wagons and crates and campfires.

Everything the sparkles hit glowed brighter and seemed to expand.

The light faded.

Where there had been a log to sit on near the fire, now there were well-built wooden camp chairs. Where there had been a stack of cheap wooden boxes, there was now a large, polished crate with metal hinges. Where there had been a pile of bags and sacks, there were nicer canvas bags and neatly-tied sacks piled around a heavy chest.

Most changed were the wagons themselves. They were bigger and had gained a coat of bright paint, plus a few extra windows. Before, they had looked like wagons from the era when circuses went from town to town pulled by horses. Now they looked like fancy passenger train cars shrunk to the size of a semi-truck trailer.

The differences between each wagon were now more pronounced. Wagon four, where the crafting spaces were kept, now sprouted two chimneys and a geared contraption on the side that might have been a mechanical bellows.

Wagon three, where the players had their cabins, had a row of large windows with curtains in them. Rick couldn’t wait to see what his sleeping space looked like now. Wagons two and three – common spaces, housing for the retinue and storage -- were also drastically changed, and there was a brand new fifth wagon.

The group burst out in spontaneous applause. Rick smiled and waved an acknowledgment, and then they all broke up, scattering to the wagons, chattering excitedly amongst themselves. With five players and six NCPs, it was starting to be a bit of a crowd. He wondered if Dr. Rahimi would join them when they had enough slots. He would ask Dr. Schneider how many NCPs could they have now.

When Rick turned, Sam was still there. He had expected her to rush off with the others, but instead, she was studying him with an expression he couldn't read.

"What?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing." Then she turned away.

Rick shrugged and looked around. He was tired and almost ready to fall into his bunk, but first, he wanted to check out the changes to the caravan. He stated with Wagon one, going over and stepping inside.

The first wagon had held a kitchen before. Now, it had transformed itself into a full dining car.

A third of the space was taken up with a small seating area, with four tables, each with four chairs. The rest of the car was a kitchen.

Before, the kitchen had been a small space, the size of a galley on an airliner, where at most two people could stand crammed together in front of the little counter and cooktop, now it was large and small.

Now, it was the size of the kitchen in a modest-sized house or a small restaurant. Pans hung from hooks on the ceiling, and cabinets, cubbyholes, and shelves with little railings to keep things from falling off were crammed into every available space. Dried herbs and meat hung from hooks on the ceiling. Theo and Nia were looking it over while talking in low voices, but they nodded as Rick passed. He continued on to the back door of the wagon. He had never been much of a cook, so while the setup looked impressive, he didn’t know what else to think of it.

Rick climbed down from the landing and went to the second car in line. This one had been a combination of sleeping cabins and a small sitting area with a bookshelf, so Rick wasn’t sure what to expect.

The cabins, as far as he could tell with their doors closed, looked larger, and the doors themselves were nicer. His own cabin was in the third car, and he couldn’t wait to check it out. But he was saving that for last. The sitting area was remarkably transformed.

Before, there had been two small chairs and a bookshelf with an assortment of Martian histories or spell books. Rick, who had never been particularly into game lore, had not taken the time to explore those yet. Now, the area was much larger. There was a globe of Mars set in a rich wooden frame. The chairs were now overstuffed, with high backs and small tables at their elbows. Brass gas lamps lit the space with a warm light, and bookshelves covered the walls from floor to ceiling. They all had tiny rails holding the books in place, with hinges and latches every foot to provide access.

There were four chairs, two on each side of the car, sitting opposite each other. Elliot Mason and Dr. Martel sat in two of them. A large open book lay on the table in front of them, and they were discussing what was in it in low but excited tones.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

They nodded to Rick, and he made a show of looking at the bookshelves. He really should take some time to study what was here. The small library had seemed like a token decorative room before to he had ignored it. But now, looking at the walls full of books, he could only assume there was a large amount of useful knowledge in the tomes. But how long would it take for him to read through them?

No doubt Doctor Rahimi would be interested in what these histories contained.

The third wagon had been all cabins for sleeping previously, so Rick skipped it. He was getting tired and wanted to save his own room for last.

The fourth wagon was the crafting space. It had been impressive before, with a small anvil in one corner and the world’s tiniest forge and bellows next to it. Brick benches had been crammed in all corners, each with various pieces of equipment either bolted to it or securely latched to the wall nearby.

Rick had no crafting skills and had never been particularly handy. Some hobbies were difficult to maintain in an apartment, like metalwork or carpentry. He had always thought someday, when he owned a house, he would like a garage for a workshop. But other than shop class in high school, he hadn’t had much time to indulge.

Perhaps because of that lack, most of the workbenches had previously been unintelligible. Now, the car was expanded, the workbenches better stocked, and Rick was able to see what some of them might be for.

One bench held an assortment of hammers and awls. He vaguely remembered having noticed it before. Now, it was clear what they were for, because large sheets of leather were in a rack next to it, long strips hanging from bars across the ceiling. The small hammers and awls had an assortment of dies and stamps next to them on little shelves. This was clearly a leatherworking station.

Across from it, on the other side of the wagon, Daniel sat hunched over a table on the other side. His body blocked what he was working on, so Rick slipped on past. There was an impressive variety of benches here, and what bonuses they could provide would be very interesting.

At the far end of the workshop car, he stopped and pulled up his retinue interface. Previously, there had only been three retinue slots in the entire caravan—one for the caravan master, one for a cook, and one for a smith.

Now, there were three crafter slots on the crafter wagon icon. They could be assigned to one of six different roles, armorsmith, weaponsmith, jeweler, trapmaker, fletcher and enchanter. But since there were benches separate for each one, Rick wondered if that meant in future upgrades all six would be populated, or if the remaining benches were merely for looks—or even for players to tinker at, like Daniel was doing now.

They had been in such a hurry to get their party leveled up that Rick had not taken the time to explore all the mechanics of this system.

The fifth car was entirely new and Rick didn’t know what to expect. Just inside the forward door was a small office featuring an enormous old-fashioned rolltop writing desk. There were brass gas lights on the wall and a lamp on the table, next to a rack of cubby holes where papers could be stored. All in all, it looked like just the sort of office a Victorian merchant would use to keep his tally books.

Just beyond, the hall ended. The car was filled side to side and most of the way to the back with a war room.

That was how Rick initially thought of it because of the large map table that filled the space.

He recalled now that there had been a crude map of the area tacked up on the wall. But it had been less detailed than his own system map in his interface, so he had never given it much attention.

That had changed.

Now the map was huge and filled the table. He bent over and saw the details were incredible. When he focused on it, the map sprung into three dimensions with the mesa city towering over the region. He could see Angels Landing in great detail and the farm village nearby. The map extended far out into the desert all around the irrigated farm district.

Gambit and Ideo Takashi were there already, pointing out various features to each other.

Gambit looked at Rick as he came in. "Pretty nice, huh? You can make it highlight known quest hubs and vendors and everything."

"It's based on more than just what you know,” Dr Takashi added, his voice sounding wooden. “Everyone who comes in here updates it automatically with everything they've seen and everyone they've interacted with."

"Wow, really?" Rick asked. "So, if we all went questing in different areas..."

Gambit was nodding with a smile. "Yeah, we could fill in the whole region."

Possibilities whirled through Rick's mind. They could coordinate daily quests and have each of them do different ones. They could coordinate quest hubs and each do different ones. That is, if they could get enough gear and levels to do them solo. Maybe they should split into smaller teams.

Rick wondered this aloud and Gambit's smile turned into a grin. "You haven't checked your interface? We can hold six now. In the party."

"What?"

Rick opened his interface and shifted through it to the party interface. Sure enough, there was room for another now.

“Those fools kicked us for no reason,” Gambit said, satisfaction in his voice.

But Rick noticed something else about the interface, there was a list of party members that was labeled “Dungeon Group". The list only held five.

"Whoa," Rick said, explaining what he saw. "That might mean they'll keep giving us more slots. So we can have more in our party, but only send five at a time into a dungeon. Huh."

He toggled the system back to "Questing Mode" and the list of players combined back into a single stack of six.

Takashi was looking at Rick. "But we can improve this setup further if we just had some items. I've heard there's someone to the south of the zone that might have something we could use. Should I go investigate?"

Suddenly a new pop-up appeared. [New mission available.]

"What the—?" Something glowed in the corner of Rick's vision and he turned. In the corner of the room, on the wall, was a large board covered in scraps of paper held by thumbtacks. A smaller map was tacked up next to it. A single label over both of them hovered in the air, glowing: [Mission Board].

Rick went over to it, the others joining him.

Takashi’s voice took on the stilted quality that indicated he was being controlled by the system.

"The Mission Board will allow you to assign NCPs to various tasks outside of the caravan."

"Oh, holy crap, Gambit, did you see this? A Mission Board?"

Gambit was grinning and nodding. "I saw it, but I hadn't checked it out yet." He came over and stood with Rick as Takashi continued his spiel.

"Various missions will appear on the board every day." Takashi pointed to a cluster of notes tacked to the board.

"On the right side, you will be able to assign mission-running NCPs to those missions." He pointed out a row of paper scraps stacked up, tacked on the left side of the board in a neat stack. Each one held a name. All six of the NCPs were listed. A handwritten scrap to one side of the list noted what Takashi now said. "If you assign an NPC with a job to a mission, they will temporarily be removed from that job until the mission is over. Players assigned to missions will be removed from their active party for the duration."

"You can assign players to missions too? Holy crap, this is sweet!"