Before handing out the scrolls to summon the different populations, I looked at the settlement tasks to see how far we were from completing the next task.
- Settlement Tasks:
Have a population of 70 (62/70)
Have 5 settlers at level 6 or higher (9/5)
Optional Tasks:
Have 10 settlers with professions at level 5 (32/10) -
The only thing holding us back is the total population. I feel at ease, though it makes me curious about who is leveling up, so I ask everyone in the room: "Have we figured out who initially had a higher level than all of us?"
"From what I have dug up, one of the scouts has been particularly active when exploring. It is one of the undead, but he always brings someone from your world. So I can only think that maybe the two of them have formed a party and are using that to their advantage to level up quickly." Shadow offers.
"Is this something I should be concerned about?" I asked.
"I wouldn't be concerned about it for the time being. It isn't like they are hurting us by being at a higher level. I would say that it would be prudent to give you more experience, though. So, if you have experience bags, I would use them." Draemish says.
Nodding in agreement, I move on. "We are eight persons short of leveling the settlement to the next level. With the houses completed, we should be able to summon more people into the settlement without worrying about housing. So, I will hand these off to you, and you can summon them later."
Handing out the scrolls, each person received five; while this will cause a housing shortage again, we have the resources to deal with it now, so it isn't a rush. "Next, I want to discuss the goblin encampment near our settlement. How do you propose we handle this matter?"
The first to answer is Draemish: "We need to destroy them before they can get too powerful. Right now, they are a pile of loose sand, but we never know when these creatures will be able to gather more of their kind and launch an attack on us."
"How would you go about doing that?" Narus asks.
"We would want to take a set of volunteers up there to wipe them out. They don't have any major defenses, and we can clear them and fall back if needed."
"How many volunteers?" Zul'Zara asks.
"At least 20 to 30 would be enough to clear the goblins. With our levels, that doesn't seem too far-fetched." Draemish continues to answer.
"Do we have that many people that would want to participate?" I asked.
"If we put the word out, people will join. If we don't want to do that, we could always take those willing and bring the newly summoned people out with us." She says while shrugging.
"That doesn't seem like the best idea," I respond.
"It isn't any less dangerous than when we summoned people to participate in the defensive battle we had just recently. So, I don't see your point."
I can only concede the point by raising my finger and lowering it. "Ok, so what are you thinking?"
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"My thoughts on the matter was to bring the newly summoned population with us to clear out the goblins. This would let them quickly realize that they must join our settlement for safety and that we can defend ourselves."
Everyone around the room starts nodding along in agreement. "Plus, this might lead to more support for people going out and exploring. Right now, a couple of groups go out actively every day to explore, but that is only around ten people, depending on the day. Some are staying back to guard, but they don't want to leave the safety of the settlement. Not to say what they are doing isn't right, but they could be more active in our protection."
Again, there isn't anything wrong with what she is saying. "So, what you are saying is that we should start to form a difference between the guard group and those actively exploring?"
"That would be a reasonable request."
I think about all the different ways we could classify the groups, and then I think of something else. I had several different chests from the two quests and the dungeon exploration. I should open those, and then maybe I could get a general idea of what to expect. "Can we hold off on the clarification until I dig deeper into the rewards I received a week ago? There might be something in there that could be useful in this situation."
Seeing agreement in everyone's eyes, I asked the room, "Is there anything else we should be aware of?"
With a chorus of 'No's,' I ask everyone to stay while we open the chests in case something of use to the settlement becomes available. It doesn't take long, with everyone's help, to gather the chests in the main hall, and then I start to open them. Thirty-three chests need to be opened; 17 of them are from my most recent trip into the fog, and the other 16 are from the defensive battle that took place. They hadn't been opened yet, so I smacked my head for forgetting to do so.
We quickly go through the chests and are glad we finally get to some of the other rewards.
The things worth noting in the batch of chests from the dungeon. There are 12 Race-Specific Population scrolls and some more building blueprint tokens. There aren't any more full blueprints from these chests. Proceeding to the 16 chests from almost two weeks ago, I look at them.
- Selectable Chest: Please select one of the following resources for this chest to become. It will transform into a medium chest of that type of resource.
Population
Resource
Token
Blueprint -
At this point, I want the most blueprint chests; I select ten chests for blueprints and the other for resources. You can never have too many resources. Thankfully, my luck is much better this time around. I was able to get one of the blueprints that I had thought of and another special blueprint.
- Adventurer's Guild Tier 1 Level 1: Provides a place to give out quests generated by PUN or the settlement lord. 200 Units of Tier 1 wood, 100 Units of Tier 1 stone, 100 Units of Tier 1 metal. It requires an Apprentice Foreman, Woodworker, Blacksmith, Tailor, Enchanter, and Scribe.
Abernathy's Tavern Early Tier 2: This tavern is connected to a small side tavern of Abernathy's Universal Pub Crawl. It allows for exchanging information and gossip from different parts of PUN. Requires 500 Units of Tier 2 wood, 200 Units of Tier 2 stone, and 100 Units of Tier 2 metal. Requires a Journeyman Foreman, Enchanter, Carpenter, and Mason. This blueprint can only be used once. -
Raising my fist triumphantly, I look around, "I have the solution; it will take some time to figure out if we have the requisite professional levels." The smile never escaped my lips.
"How do either of these help us?" Demetrius asks.
Looking at him like a fool, I answer, "Like in video games or novels, where people go to the adventurer's guild to get quests, this can incentivize going out and exploring. It can also help with smaller items as I could have worked the different outposts of a quest, so when they complete the quest, there is a certain amount of experience received."
A look of clarity comes into his eyes, "Ohhh."
Looking again at Demetrius, I can tell he hasn't played many games and wasn't into reading the fantasy side. He seems more like someone who works in a research lab. Not someone who is specifically a researcher but more on the side of dealing with trying to get grants and the like for the researchers. It is probably why they had him become the spokesperson for our world.
Thankfully, everyone else here seems to be aware of the concept of an adventurer's guild. Continuing on, I look at the tavern blueprint and am curious about what it means in its description, but considering we don't have the materials to build it at this time anyway. I put it off to the side.
Feeling the meeting is ready to wrap up, I look at everyone and give them a heartfelt thanks, "Thank you, everyone; without your help, I couldn't have figured out what to do this last week. Let's keep working together to form a better settlement for everyone here!" And with those final words, I finally got a notification that I had been expecting but didn't know when it was coming.