The spawns began as I was hoeing. Zombies shuffled around the edges of the light, and phantoms circled above. I ignored them, tapping away at the earth with my tool, which exploded the grass as it went and soon left me with close to three hundred square feet of soon to be vegetable rows. The people of Eerb had been more than happy to supply me with seeds, and I set about planting cabbages.

After the first plot was done, I moved to the edge of the enclosure and drew my sword to stab a shambler in its yawning mouth before slipping through the fence and starting on a shelter. I went with red granite, the building material Kevin had been so fond of, and soon had myself a nice stone cube to spend the rest of the night in. It took longer than it should have, as I had to pause to fend off the more aggressive shamblers, but the torches effectively kept most of them back.

It was difficult to predict how many mobs would spawn over the course of a night. The rate at which they appeared varied, and with the way they despawned, I could never get an exact count. I was just about to put a roof on my shelter when a troll came into being in the middle of my plot.

The torches created a sphere of protected space, but being that I had eyeballed the measurements, and with the height of the poles, there had been a dim zone at the exact center of my triangle. It wasn’t dark; the light was just weaker there. My experience had always been that monsters slipped into the world through shadows, and I hadn’t thought that a merely less bright spot would be enough to cause a problem.

Apparently, I had been wrong.

The troll didn’t look comfortable. It crouched low to the ground, hemmed in on all sides by punishing light, and it was one of the smallest examples of the species I had ever seen, maybe eight feet tall. It looked right at me; small, furious eyes set in a canine face. Its oversized paws raked the ground, and I cried out in dismay.

“My cabbages!”

I slipped back through the fence, brandishing Kevin's sword, and the monster hooted angrily. Its gaze was pure murder, but the light had it rooted to one spot.

“Complain all you want,” I said. “You did this to yourself.”

I moved in to stab it, and the monster twisted so that my blade sank into the flesh of its shoulder. The troll roared, and its arm swept out, catching me in the side and tossing me across the enclosure. My cuirass absorbed the brunt of the blow, but it wasn’t a fun experience. I was just glad I'd made a habit of wearing it.

I got back to my feet, coughed a bit, and went at it again. This time I was more careful, and when it swiped at me, I cut its hand. It pressed itself through the light to get to me, and I backed up a step. We spent the next few minutes going back and forth, adding nick after nick to its leathery hide. Even though my armor gave me some protection, if it hit me in the head or grabbed me and drew me in, it could easily mean another death and losing time the lillits couldn’t afford. As its wounds multiplied, the troll grew increasingly willing to brave the light. That was fine by me. The more it exposed itself to the torchlight, the weaker it would be.

Its legs bunched under it, and I realized it was going to lunge. When it came forward, I dodged to one side and brought my sword down into its muscular neck. It hooted, overcome by rage and pain, and I barely ducked under an incoming backhand before retreating. Blood was pouring freely from its neck, and rather than continue its pursuit, it fled back to the relative safety of the dim center of the plot and squatted, wobbling in place. Its long snout dipped, and it collapsed onto its side, breathing heavily. A thin trail of its essence slipped from its wound along with the blood, drawn toward the gem in the pommel of my blade.

I almost felt bad for it.

Eventually, it died, and I set about lowering the torch poles so that the light over the plot was stronger. Shamblers had assembled along the fence like spectators at a bullfight while I harvested the troll's hide and meat. Trying not to think about what time it was, I used the hoe to fix up my garden and slipped back into my shelter to finish the roof.

The cube was open on the side where it pressed up against the enclosure, allowing light to flow inside. It was necessary to discourage spawns, but I could have seen well enough to work without it. Demon eyes, and all that. It was getting to be time for a nap, and now I had a proper bed to have it on. Unlike in the game, sleeping on a bed did not reset my spawn point, or if it did, my screens hadn't given me a notification about it. Still, the bed I had taken from the way station was a vast improvement over the grass mats I had used in the past, even if it didn't come with any System related benefits.

********

When I returned to the mine in the morning, I found Esmelda, Boffin, and Dongle Darfur embroiled in an argument. The fat, former jeweler was waving his arms as he berated Boffin, who was taking the tirade stoically. Esmelda was standing with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping her foot and clearly annoyed. Dongle’s son, Quentin, was nearby, slightly to one side and looking embarrassed.

“What’s up?” I said, and Dongle caught himself in mid gesture.

“Excellent,” he said, “now that you are here, we can talk some sense into the Mayor.”

“It’s Dongle who doesn’t have any sense,” Esmelda said. “He wants to go hunting for jewels.”

“It isn’t a hunt!” Dongle insisted. “I know where they are.”

“Erihseht was raided,” I said. “Whatever you had in your shop is gone.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“These were hidden,” Dongle rounded on me, confirming my suspicion that he had buried treasure. “My private store. We need resources, don’t we? They want me to help in the construction of a barn.” He gestured at the frame of a longhouse that was already rising near the ridge. “It’s a failure of imagination. Look at these hands, a jeweler’s hands, we cannot waste them on mere carpentry.”

It was probably for the best that Perrin wasn’t around to hear him say that. The mustached lillit was already directing a crew who were sawing and chopping and notching my logs for better use in their construction.

“We all have to contribute,” Boffin said.

“That’s what I’m telling you.” Dongle said. “Allow me and Quentin to go find my savings, and we can purchase more supplies from Henterfell. That’s my contribution. Let us take a small group, a few horses, food for the road, and we’ll be back in a week with enough to feed a village.”

How much money did this man have buried? Regardless, he had a point. One or two more pairs of hands wasn’t what we needed now. While Esmelda and I could poke fun at his desire for profit, I was more than willing to pay for his help. There was more gold sealed under the mine than he would have seen in a lifetime as a jeweler. I didn't want to spend it in Henterfell, but if he used his own money to buy supplies, it would be easy to repay him.

“I’m not in charge of rationing,” I said. “Esmelda, I’m getting the farm started. But if he finds what he’s looking for, this could really help us. Is there a problem I’m not seeing?”

She frowned, her arms still crossed. “Fine, Dongle, go. Ask Brenys about the food and the horses. And we better see you back here in a week.”

“Wonderful.” Dongle bowed to Esmelda, then to me, collected his son, and took off in a hurry.

“Am I missing something?” I said.

Esmelda sighed. “It’s not the idea of the thing, it’s Dongle himself. I half think he’ll take his money and buy himself a house in Henterfell. We may never see him again.”

Boffin cleared his throat. “Dongle is not a...community minded sort. It’s true. I can make sure some lillits that go with him are people we trust. If he’s as good as his word, this could be a real help for us.”

“Yeah.” I said. “He’s a little oily, but we need every resource at our disposal, and he’s one of them.”

The mayor chuckled. “So you say. Let me make sure I know who’s joining him.” Boffin took his leave to go after Dongle.

“How are things going?” I asked Esmelda.

She came to stand with me, and we watched the men at work around the longhouse frame. “Mostly the same as yesterday. People are worried, but hopeful. Hunger isn’t too much of a problem yet, but it will be soon, and people know that. We’ve sent out some groups to forage and hunt, but that’s going to be a minor supplement in the scheme of things.”

“It’ll work out,” I said. “We’ve got Mizu on our side, right?”

She glanced up at me, surprised. “When did you become so faithful?”

“Oh, I’m not. That was a legitimate question. Do you think the goddess is looking out for us?”

Esmelda squeezed my hand. “She is.”

“Once I have it a little more together,” I said, “do you want to come see the farm? I’m going to have to keep sleeping around the crops for this to work, so I might as well build a proper house there for us.”

“Of course.”

Perrin had spotted us, and he trotted over with purpose in his stride.

“You said you had clay?”

“Oh, right. I was in a rush yesterday.”

“At your convenience,” he said, sounding like he meant right now.

"Got you." I said. "But do either of you know a good way of figuring out where to dig a well?" I asked.

Esmelda frowned. "It's trial and error. I would suggest starting with lowlands nearby. My mother said that willows and alder trees were a sign of water. Springs, of course, but I don't know if there are any around here."

Perrin threw up his hands. "Not my area of expertise."

I waved at the harpies, and after nearly a minute of that, Celaeno flapped down to speak with me. She was as taller than Esmelda, and both lillits took a step back as she arrived.

"Hey Celaeno," I said, "can you ask the homies to scout the area for willow trees, springs, wet ground, that sort of thing? I'm looking for a spot to dig a well."

The harpy preened herself, running her beak through the feathers under one long wing.

"We can. This land is lush, nothing like the Wastes. What is a willow?"

Esmelda explained what the different tree species we wanted them to be on the lookout for looked like, and Celaeno took off. Aside from hunting phantoms, there was a lot to be said for having a squad of aerial scouts on demand. In the meantime, I set about giving Perrin more clay than he would ever need, as well as a small mountain of stone blocks. Esmelda returned to community organizing, and by the time I’d run through a couple of cabochons worth of material, the sun was already high in the sky, and I took a break for lunch. Water and flatbread; it wasn’t much, and I knew we would have even less soon.

The harpies quickly came up with several potential dig sites, and I chose the one closest to the ridge. The closest patch of alder trees was only half a mile from the mine, and I picked a spot at random among them to dig. It took me well into the afternoon when I hit the water table about sixty feet down. Then it was just a matter of grinding my way back up, laying stone steps as I went. A group of children had assembled around the site to watch my progress, their faces hanging over the hole.

“Hey,” I said, addressing one at random, and the boy shrank away.

“Can you go tell people there’s water here? It would be a big help.”

He nodded, eyes wide, and he and a handful of the other children scurried off. I told the ones that remained to get back to their families. Most of the day was already gone, and I felt like I had accomplished little of anything. I went to find Esmelda, who was helping keep things in order around the supply wagons, and sat down on a convenient rock.

“We should try to get everyone together at some point,” I said, “make sure the community knows what we’re doing here.”

“I’ve been trying,” she said. “When the longhouse is up, do you want to hold a town hall meeting?”

“Something like that. I want them to know that we’re going to be alright.”

“We may not be.” Her gaze was distant, “not everyone. People were hurt at the waystation, and the Dargothians weren’t taking good care of them on the road. The touch of Koroshai leads to sickness. Some have already lost family members, and we just have to hope that it stops now, that it doesn't spread, that we can produce enough food, and the snow doesn’t come early.”

“All the more reason to talk to them.”

“I agree,” she said, giving me a pat. “They need to see that there is someone leading them. You’re too mysterious as it is, always appearing and disappearing, performing minor miracles, and then wandering off. You’re their baron now, but half of them don’t know that, and we’ve never really had a baron before. We paid taxes to Henterfell, but Erihseht and the other towns were basically independent. Maybe we could elect you as mayor. They would be more comfortable with that.”

“Mayor of what?”

“Williamsburg,” her eyes crinkled with amusement, already knowing what my response would be.

“That’s embarrassing,” I said. “We don’t need to name the town after me.”

“My father suggested it. I think it’s a fine name.”

“We can circle back to this,” I said. “I need to get to the farm before zombies start popping up and trying to eat people.”

Esmelda kissed my cheek, her lips soft and warm.

“Hurry back,” she said, “we need you here.”