Callum had a new goal to work towards. He wanted to purchase the town hall. It was going to take him some time to get there, though. The first tree had given him only fifty wood units, and he was going to need one thousand.
The reason for this building was twofold. The pillar of civilization had requirements to advance and this would at least provide some temporary shelter for the people he had unintentionally displaced.
The requirements were simple for the first upgrade. He needed fifty citizens and a town hall. The citizens were easy as there were at least fifty people who had been displaced, but the town hall would take some work.
Callum took a step back and realized he was starting to put a lot on his plate. The appearance of this pillar of civilization was incredibly interesting, and he felt like a kid who had just gotten a new toy.
The warning he had been given at the end of the dungeon was something that could not be ignored. He was sure other dungeons had popped up, and if those dungeons started to leak, it could be disastrous. He had to figure out his priorities.
He had made a hasty promise to these people that he would find somewhere for them to live. If he exercised his claim on this territory, and they lived here, where did that leave him? Was he now responsible for them because he had provided a place to live?
To a certain extent, he was responsible, but he could teach them to keep themselves safe. He didn’t see himself as some savior of humanity, but he had his own moral code, and he was sure that in the coming months, there would be those seeking to take advantage of people. What he could do was establish somewhere that people could come for some semblance of the life they had left behind.
There were still dozens of questions to be answered, but he would have to leave them for later or find someone who could organize things for him. He had no experience in city planning, but surely he could find someone who was organizationally minded.
With his thoughts set straight now, his first order of business was to build the town hall, but he wasn’t going to do it alone. He walked back to the obelisk and purchased another three axes. He didn’t feel bad about spending the gold as he felt that he could raid dungeons to get more, which he planned to do anyway.
Axes purchased, he strode over to the soon-to-be villagers.
“I said I would find somewhere for you to live, and it seems that I already have. It just hasn’t been built yet. By cutting down trees, I can use the wood to build things by using the pillar over there. As you already saw, I cut down one tree myself however I can’t do all the work alone. I am asking for just three people to help cut down trees so that we can start to build you a new home. Unfortunately, houses can’t be built straight away . . .”
Callum launched into a basic explanation of how the pillar worked, and that he needed to complete the first upgrade to build the houses. He also went over the process for becoming a citizen as the other requirement for being able to build houses.
He was surprised at how quickly the people accepted this new reality. They had been at his throat moments ago, but the promise of actual houses compared to the apartments they had been living in seemed to motivate them. Most of them at least.
There were still a few who were angry at him for destroying their homes and everything in it. He knew that wouldn’t be an easy thing to forgive, but he figured he would win them over at some point. It made him think for a moment about his apartment.
If it had turned into a dungeon as well, then the food he had stockpiled would probably be worthless, unless he chose the destroy the dungeon option. Though, if he remembered correctly, that would not convert the territory into a safe zone. He resolved to go back to his apartment that night.
He glanced up, estimating that it was only about mid-day. There was still plenty of time in the day to get what he wanted done. He grabbed his axe and headed toward the trees. Doing some quick math on the way, if that tree had given him fifty wood, then they needed roughly twenty trees to fill the requirements for the town hall.
He quickly found a rhythm and was chopping trees at a good pace. He wasn’t putting as much into his strikes as he had on the first tree since he wanted to preserve his strength. There was no telling what the rest of the day may hold, and having an empty stamina pool seemed like asking for disaster to him.
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After his fifth tree, he looked over to the three working with him and sized them up. Two men and a woman, all three looked to be working hard. They all had muscular builds and were moving with a good rhythm. He thought it likely they had all chosen warrior classes based on how well they were doing.
It allowed him to test if his Identity could be used on other people and not just objects. He focused on each of them in turn and found it could be used on people. Identify confirmed his guess as each had a small box attached to them that said [Warrior: Level 1].
[Identify: Level 1 → Level 2]
He hadn’t been expecting to increase the level so easily, but it was a welcome bonus. He tried Identifying them again to see if anything changed. It did not, but he just shrugged. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t much more he needed to know other than maybe a name.
His short break over, he picked his axe up and went back to work. Over the next hour, he and the team of three were able to fall another ten trees. He chopped one extra just to be sure that he wouldn’t need to come back out as the trees were getting rather far from the stone obelisk.
As he walked back, someone seemed to step out of the shadows of a tree. He snapped into a fighting stance before he realized that it was Eliza. She was getting freakishly good at sneaking around.
“You scared the shit out of me,” Callum chided her.
She shrugged and fell in step beside him.
“You could at least try not to give me a heart attack.”
“Sorry,” she said, then took a step away from him. “You stink. What happened in there?”
Callum sighed and recounted the events of the dungeon for a second time.
“Sounds like fun.”
“If you consider nearly dying at every turn fun, then yeah it was fun. What have you been doing while I was in there?”
“Been here and there. Seeing what’s going on in the city.”
“Any monster outbreaks or other signs of the apocalypse?”
“No outbreaks, but similar stories to here. People being chased out of their homes, but no one else has been as dumb as you.” He took that as “been dumb enough to charge into a building,” but he didn’t hold it against her.
They made it most of the way back to the obelisk at which point she nearly disappeared, but Callum was barely able to track her as she slipped away. She didn’t go far but clearly didn’t enjoy being around a lot of people.
Callum reached the obelisk and placed his hand on it to interact. He quickly flipped through menus until he came to the shop where he could purchase the town hall and selected it.
The ground twenty feet away from the pillar flattened itself, clearing away any small plants that were in the way. Then, wooden logs appeared and stacked creating a building from nothing. Cutouts were made for doors, and a slanted wooden roof formed.
Callum thought something like this might happen, but thinking about it and seeing it were two very different things. He didn’t know what to call it other than magic. The finishing touches settled into place, and two wooden doors settled onto hinges and swung outward, inviting them in.
His curiosity unable to be contained, Callum rushed inside. It was an incredibly spacious building. It was forty feet wide and nearly a hundred feet long, by his estimation. Most of the central area was open with a few areas on the sides walled off.
Callum explored some of the side rooms and found a kitchen, a small warehouse, and a meeting room. It wasn’t much, but he was confident that there would be enough room for everyone to sleep for the night. Tomorrow, they could start getting more wood for the houses.
Finally finding the time to do so, Callum grabbed his backpack with a spare change of clothes and slipped into the meeting room to change. He still needed to find somewhere he could bathe, but even a change of clothes did him a lot of good.
Feeling much better, he returned to the obelisk to check the requirements for an upgrade. With the town hall complete, and all of the people registered as citizens, he selected the upgrade.
Nothing visibly changed about the stone obelisk, but new menus had been unlocked. Callum closed them, knowing he could come back later and go through everything.
The sun was getting low in the sky and Callum wanted to visit his apartment before night fell. He wasn’t sure what might be lurking around during the night and he preferred to at least have some strength in numbers.
As everyone was getting settled, he found an opportunity to sneak away. Once he was out of view, he fell into a light jog. Even though to him it felt like a light jog, two days ago it would have been a full sprint, and even then he wasn’t sure he would move as fast as he was now.
He pushed himself a little faster and found that he was quickly covering the distance. In only fifteen minutes he had made it to the street his apartment was on. As he slowed, he noticed a group of four men standing around the entrance. He squinted trying to figure out who they were when he noticed the gang signs on their jackets.
He immediately Identified all of them, finding they were all level-two warriors. They all had bats, but he wasn't afraid of a few level-two warriors. He walked up to the entrance, intending to simply brush past them, confident if it came to a fight, he would be fine.
“Hey! Stop! Who are you?” one of them asked.
“I live here. Just coming back to my apartment,” Callum said nonchalantly.
The guy chuckled and responded, “Oh, so you don’t know. This is Viper territory now. You want in, you gotta pay the tax. How ‘bout that sword?”
Shit. The Vipers. Well, they can’t have my sword. If it pisses them off, I’ll just deal with it.
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Not going to happen. Hear that boys? Sound like we get to have some fun. Get him!”