Chapter 6

Waking up Declan was surprised to feel well rested, given all the things the System had put him through while sleeping. Quickly pulling off the sheet and looking down, he was pleasantly surprised to see his pants whole with no sign of the arrow wound or bandage. Sliding out of bed and getting his boots on he starts to hear a ruckus building in the hallway. Opening his door he stops and can’t help but stare at the crowded hallway. It is packed asses to elbows with people heading outside. He can’t help but think to himself that something is not right. There shouldn’t be this many people awake in his building yet.

Joining the throng of talking people, he finally starts to hear Alice shouting something to the crowd of people at the building's doors. “ Ok everyone, start a line at the building across the street and we will get everyone fed while we figure out what is going on. We did not wake up all of this building’s units yet. The System must be doing something to accelerate the waking program.”

Stepping out of the line of people heading towards the food hall Declan walks up to Alice to talk to her. “Hey Alice what is going on?”

“Oh, Declan good morning and welcome to today’s program of what did the System do now. From what we can tell it woke up everyone in all of the buildings that we have built,” Alice says.

Taking a moment to absorb that, Declan responds, “ Is that a bad thing? Wasn’t everyone going to be woken up anyway?”

“Yes,” says Alice. “But not everyone at the same time. We had a preset schedule of how many people to wake up, determined by the amount of food and work we had available for everyone. Also we just recently found some raw metal to begin working into new tools for people to use. The system waking up everyone in our buildings is exceeding the amount of tools we have available”

Taking that in for a moment, just continues to stare at Alice. “Are you saying that we are going to have food shortages here soon?”

“No,” she says, “The System and all its fuckery has given our cooks skills to speed up the cooking process. Also did you notice the bird songs? There is wildlife spawning in the areas around town. Which wasn’t supposed to happen. No wildlife was pre programmed into the ARK, to spawn anywhere around town. It was only supposed to be in the woods and rivers. Nothing was supposed to be able to enter the town limits, defined by the programs. It is supposed to be a closed program teaching us how to build the settlement quickly, and to become self-reliant on our farming, and ranching. The hunters were only supposed to supplement our food supply until the ranches and farms were up to full production.”

“Ok so what is the problem then? Sounds like the system is giving us ways to solve the issues it is creating.”

She responds, “ that would be all great. If the System wasn’t also spawning in monsters like those from our dreams. We have had reports of those goblin things spotted around the edges of the settlement sneaking around and playing in the streams. We also had one person say that they saw some of them trying to get into the tool sheds. Luckily they weren't tall enough to reach the latches at the top of the doors.”

“Wow, so what are we going to do about it? It sounds like the system is just going to steamroll us and do whatever it wants to do. Are the programming guys able to change anything? I thought they were supposed to have command of the system to make sure no one was tampering with it.”

“I don’t know yet.,” Alice sighs. “Right now the government reps and Mr. Adam are scrambling to talk with the programmers to see what else the System has changed. They want to be able to brief everyone and hopefully get ahead of some of the problems this is going to create for us.” Looking slightly strung out and shaky she says to me. “Go get some breakfast with everyone else. The reps are setting up a meeting with everyone here in the street once they have more information and after everyone is fed. Hopefully people won’t panic as bad if they have full stomachs.”

“Ok Alice, if there is anything I can do to help let me know. I have worked a lot of jobs and I can take a larger team to keep them busy today if that helps.”

“Thank you Declan, right now everyone is probably going to have larger teams today as we get used to the changes that system is making.”

Following the stream of people I make my way into the cafeteria and get a bowl of oatmeal with dried fruit in it. Seeing nowhere to sit, I lean against the wall to hold it up while I eat. Even with the fruit the oatmeal is still bland, “I really hope they brought some cinnamon and other spices to grow” I think to myself. Otherwise this food isn’t going to be getting any better anytime soon.

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Quickly eating and busing my spoon and bowl to the wash area before heading outside and finding a place towards the front of the forming crowd to wait for government representatives to come speak to everyone. I’m surprised that we aren’t kept waiting long.

Twenty minutes after walking outside, along with what looks like most of the people now awake, probably close to a thousand in the street now, Mr. Adam walks out of a building further up the street and hops onto a crate someone dragged out and set up for him. It looks like there is only one other rep with him.

“Good morning everyone. I apologize for any confusion, but we are doing everything we can to find out what exactly is going on.” The crowd starts murmuring at this, but quiets down when he starts speaking again. “ It appears that an unknown program has somehow integrated itself with the ark program. Nothing critical has been changed, but it has made changes. For starters, there are now multiple programs running. What this means is this System has created multiple simulations of the Ark program. As far as we are able to tell everyone is awake now. Just not in the same simulation. Also the System has separated all of the Government Representatives and spread us out between the multiple simulations. I can only hope it did this to help us. However we are unable to speak to anyone in any of the other simulations, or anyone on Earth. The System has removed our access to the communication channels back home.” This statement really gets the people talking and Mr. Adam has to wait a few minutes before he is able to continue.

"While this all sounds concerning, there has been other changes as well," Mr. Adam continues. This new program has introduced creatures into the simulation. I'm sure many of you have seen these "goblin" creatures around the town this morning." Mr. Adam makes air quotes around the word goblin. "According to our programmers there are many other such creatures. The program has also removed the boundaries from the town. Meaning wild life is now able to enter the town. For the time being no one go anywhere alone, until we understand what is going on." This is for all of our protection."

The crowd starts talking louder at this point and Mr. Adam has to raise his voice to be heard.

"Also we are suspending all work crews today outside of what is necessary, such as cooks and gardeners. I want everyone today to familiarize themselves with this system. I am told we all had the tutorial last night, but I want everyone to spend time today trying to learn whatever you can, and to send it in a report to myself, Alice, and the programmers. We will be putting together an information dump this afternoon with everyone's findings. Alright everyone, that is all for now. I recommend that no one leave the town alone, and if you are leaving please let your team leader know so that if there are any issues we know where to go looking for you. Also if you are leaving the town borders, take a weapon with you. Check it out from the tool sheds. Whatever you are comfortable with.”

After this speech Mr Adams walks off to the side while speaking to Alice and the other rep. I get a ping from my crew, from yesterday, asking if I wanted to meet up and go exploring. I quickly send a message back telling them to meet me by the tool shed so we can arm ourselves and check out the forest. Walking towards the tools shed I quickly check my inventory to see if the system left anything from my tutorial. I am honestly surprised to find ten rolls of bandages stacked in one slot, as well as a dagger on a belt sheath. I pull out the dagger and see it isn’t the one from the tutorial. It’s about eighteen inches long, it looks like a dagger you would see in any fantasy movie. One side of it is an edge, slightly curving towards the tip. I think it kinda looks like a bowie knife. I wonder to myself if the system took this from our history or if it is common among other races to have something similar. I slide it back into the sheath and secure it to my left hip, and tie the other string around my thigh to stop it from getting caught on anything.

Getting close to the tool shed I see a small crowd has started to form up and I quickly join them before everything has been taken. By the time I get inside all of the axes and sledgehammers have been taken. Seeing a pair of hatchets off to the side I quickly pick them up and slide the handles in the back of my dagger's thick leather belt. I also grab a storage pouch and just to have something in it I grab some of the log wedge splitters, if nothing else they weigh about ten pounds and I can throw them at something. Taking the sign out sheet I see that almost no one has signed anything out, but I quickly write down what I took and hang it back by the door. Walking out I see my group from yesterday standing off to the side.

“Morning guys, what are everyone's plans for today?” They look at each other before John speaks up, “we were kinda thinking that we would split into our pairs from yesterday and do some exploring. Checking out the woods and maybe around the river. Just to see what we are working with.” I nod along with him, “ I agree, I don’t want us risking getting hurt so don’t take any chances. Try to stay within shouting distance of each other. So if there are any issues, help can come running.” They all agree and we start walking towards the woods. I send a quick message to Alice to let her know what the group agreed to and close out my messenger.

Getting to the wood line we can see the trails of other groups where they stomped through the taller grass. We follow one of the trails for a few minutes before splitting off to head in a new direction. We see some other groups standing around and talking but don’t want to crowd up so we make our own path away from them.