Now that the two motels were being cleaned, I found the box of keys for each place, as well as the master keys. I sent a group chat to all of the salvagers in my settlement asking if anyone wanted to watch a motel for me, and three people volunteered, complaining that I had already gathered all of the easy salvage.
I returned to the base long enough to pick them up, and saw that Tony had returned with a bus load of people. I informed him of the hotels, and told him to offer it to any of the couples or families that he picked up, as the rooms would hold multiple people. The first load of fifty people hadn’t contained either of those, and they were already helping Tom set up a women’s dorm in the clothing store and a men’s dorm in the shoe store. He would need to make at least nineteen more trips to bring in 1000 people.
I drove the three motel staff to the motels. Only one of them had any sort of manager experience, even if it was at a fast food restaurant, so I made them the manager and the other two employees. I could worry about altering their pay rates later. For now, I gave them the keys and told them about the System devices I had installed to keep things clean. They would just need to import the goods they needed from the base via the Outpost Orb. I would return later to figure out the water and sewage. For now they would have to hope the city water had pressure.
Back at the kitchen Di had rounded up a group of several hundred people who wanted to join us. There were several salvagers with cars in the group and, seeing that Tony wouldn’t be able to bus people fast enough she had convinced them to drive people out there. So I told her to lead them there, and went inside to talk to Jacob.
I didn’t know what to do with the final Outpost orb and asked if he had any idea where I could put it. He knew of a few apartment buildings, but if they weren’t completely empty we wouldn’t be able to claim them. So, I decided not to bother with them for now. The kitchen was running well, so I followed the caravan back to the settlement.
Once I returned, I helped clear more shops and set up more beds. We ran out of beds and even air mattresses after a few shops but at least they had a warm building to sleep in. I distributed what blankets we had.
By the time the sun had set over 500 people had registered as citizens of the settlement, though around 1100 people had arrived at the base. There would probably be one more group of people arriving via salvager caravan.
The PriceCo had been completely cleared of shelves and merchandise. Everything was in an almost full warehouse. Olivia had discovered a skill named “Shop” that let you sell things directly out of your Inventory or a Warehouse you had goods stored in, and was playing around with it. They would be buying a few Trade Terminals, an inferior version of the Market Terminal, and connecting them to their warehouse, but for now they didn’t have the money.
The restaurant was packed. I had given everyone that joined 5 zerka so that they could buy food, and most of them were doing so. I would probably need to set up another restaurant soon.
With everything set up the best I could, I sat down beside the campfire. I was exhausted. I stared into the flames for a few minutes when Di came over and set down beside me. “Good job today. We managed to set up a safe place to sleep for over a thousand people.”
“Thanks.” I said, not really paying attention.
She touched my shoulder. “Hey, you look like you could use this.” She handed me a fancy crystal glass that was half full of a brown liquid. I looked at her with confusion and she pulled out a bottle of fine whiskey. “I bought this from the warehouse. It was the best they had.”
I nodded and took the glass, then took a sip. “That actually is really good.” I said.
She poured herself a glass and clinked her glass against mine. “Cheers.” she said.
Somewhere nearby:
A distorted area appeared in the air just as the sun was rising. It was partially mirrored, but partially transparent, and seemed to waver. From the distortion stepped a tall man. He was over two meters tall and had dark, charcoal gray skin. He wore black leather clothing, and had white hair and ten centimeter long, pointed ears.
He held his arm up to block the sun from hitting his eyes. “It is much brighter here than I had hoped.”
“Yes, Lord Tarn,” a slightly shorter man with slightly lighter skin said. “This planet’s star is five times as massive as the home star. Thankfully, it is morning, and we are in winter, so the brightness isn’t as bad as it could be.” The last of the people stepped through the portal and it disappeared behind them.
Lord Tarn reached into his jacket and pulled out a pair of sun glasses, which he quickly put on. “Such is the way things go when colonizing a new world.” They had detected a new world connecting to the System network recently and Tarn had been one of the first to learn about it. He had convinced his uncle to loan him enough to start a new colony, but the paltry 250 thousand zerka would be used up quickly if he didn’t find a way to make money. They were in a fairly heavily wooded area, so selling lumber may be possible, but it would likely only cover the cost of supporting the serfs he had brought with him. His uncle expected to be repaid within ten standard years, under two local years. It had cost him twenty five thousand for the Settlement Core, and another ten thousand to have him, his advisor, and ninety eight serfs brought to this world. A world with no known Gate or even Portal Stone was expensive to travel to.
“Scouts.” he said and ten people came forward. “I need you to survey the area. Find out what local life is in the area and preferably a good location to set up the settlement.”
“Yes sir.” the ten said in unison. Eight of them held out a hand and a metallic object appeared in their palm. Another lifted off the ground and flew towards the south, while a third set down and started meditating. The objects the eight had summoned spread out, flying, crawling, burrowing, or moving in some other way, and seven green orbs flew out of the meditating man and flew away from him.
A few minutes later he sat down on a tree stump and opened up a holographic map in front of him. The workers had started clearing trees from the area so that they could be used to build with once a settlement location was chosen. The map was constantly expanding from the data being fed to it by the scouts, and showed over a kilometer in every direction. He zoomed in on one of the only creatures he saw in the area. It was some sort of tusked quadruped, but something was wrong with it. Its skin appeared to be falling off. He checked the list of all creatures detected in the area. There were far fewer than one would expect in a forest of this density, and more than half of those that were detected seemed to be undead. Societal problems were common when a world first solidified its connection to the System. Had someone’s undead servants been set free in the confusion? Though it made no sense to reanimate animals unless they were predators, which could be used for combat. Most of the ones he detected were herbivores. Most peculiar.
I woke up and realized something was wrong. I was in my bed like I usually was, but I wasn’t alone. I looked over beside me to see Di laying there asleep. ‘Please tell me nothing happened last night.’ I said to Vera.
‘If you are referring to sex, then no, nothing happened. You passed out drunk and she carried you back here, put you to bed, then climbed into bed herself.’
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
‘I thought I had poison resistance.’
‘Yes, but you are still a lightweight. You had depleted most of your energy while setting up the base, so I was severely limited on how many nanites I could task with breaking down the alcohol in your system.’
‘Great. Note to self, you can still get drunk if you run out of energy.’ I shook Di and she woke up. “Hey, it’s morning.” I said.
She woke up and looked at me. “Good morning. Did you have fun last night?”
“With the drinking and conversation, sure. Thanks for not trying anything while I was passed out. Though you probably should have slept in your own bed.”
“Of course I didn’t try anything. I’m not that bad of a person.” she climbed out of bed and I saw that she had also undressed. She was much more toned than I thought she would be. Her face also looked a bit younger. She had the face of someone in her forties and the body of someone in her thirties. Interesting. I wonder if the System was helping her with that. “As for sleeping here, it was cold, and I was drunk too. Besides, warming one RV is more fuel efficient than warming two.”
“The electricity comes from hyperspace energy fluctuations, not gasoline.”
“More energy efficient then.” She put her pants and blouse back on and left.
I laid there for a few seconds to make sure that she was gone before I got up and took a shower. After getting ready I stepped outside. It had warmed up slightly, but was still barely above freezing. You could tell everywhere people had traveled by the marks in the snow. ‘Hey Gary,’ I said, sending a message to the Settlement Core.
‘Yes, sir.’ he responded.
‘Do you have enough spare nanites to collect all of the snow inside your area and turn it into water for the storage tanks?’
‘It will be slow, but I should be able to manage.’
‘Good, in that case, do that.’ A few seconds later I noticed the roof of the storage building where Gary lived was starting to lose its snow. Yeah, it would be a while, but hopefully he could clear the area in a few hours.
I went over to the campfire and saw Tom there, talking to some of his salvage team. “So, you weren’t interested in her, huh?” He said, looking at me.
“No, I’m not. I just passed out from drinking and she carried me home. That’s what happens when you drink half a bottle of whiskey.”
“Sounds like you can’t hold your liquor.” one of the other guys said. I nodded. At least that part was true.
“So, where are you off to today?” I asked Tom.
“Probably hit that gas station to the North again. We didn’t get all of the fuel yesterday.”
“Sounds good, then. Keep an eye out for any kind of mattress or bedding store too. We ran out last night. It would be nice to find enough to at least supply everyone here.”
Tom nodded, and got up. “Will do.” With that they hopped in their trucks and left.
A little while later I met Tony and asked him to connect the sewage from the shopping center into our septic tank. “It might last a few days, but it won’t be big enough for this many people.” he said. He was looking significantly bulkier than when I first met him. He and Tom had chosen the Superhero paradigm, which focused on augmenting the body and a limited number of powers. He had went with increased strength to start with. At this point he was probably almost as strong as Paul.
“Oh, I was thinking about that.” I said, then used some of my last Zerka to buy a Recycler. “This device breaks down waste into materials that can be reused. I’ll set it to recycle everything in the septic tank into chemical nutrients.” It was five thousand zerka, and I was almost out of funds. Hopefully I would be earning more quickly.
He nodded. “In that case, I’ll get started.” He had recruited several of the newcomers last night, and now had a proper work crew of ten. “The septic tank is in a low spot in the parking lot, so everything should flow properly.”
“In that case, you had better run power and water lines underground too. And set up a rain collector on the PriceCo and connect it to the grid, too. Lawrence should allow it, just ask him first.”
An hour later Tom was pumping Diesel into the back of a concrete truck when someone came over to him. “Hey, boss. Can you come look at something?”
“Sure,” he said, turning off the pump and climbing down.
The man pointed at a point in the sky. “Any idea what that is? It’s standing still, so it isn’t a bird or an airplane. A helicopter maybe?”
Tom activated his Eagle Eyes skill and zoomed in on it. “Looks like a black woman with ashy skin in a crop top. Hard to tell from here.”
“If it’s hard to tell, how do you know it’s a woman?”
“I’m not the kind of guy to overlook a pair of massive tits.” he responded. As he watched the woman turned around and flew north. “Huh. Didn’t know anyone in town could fly yet. I’ll have to learn to do that myself.”
A well endowed woman in a short black shirt flew into the clearing created by the newcomers and landed. “Lord Tarn.” she said, kneeling before the man.
“You are one of the scouts, yes?” he said, standing. “Report.”
“When I flew up I noticed what looked like artificial buildings to the south, so I flew that way. When I got close, my helper told me that it detected several System devices active in the area, so I changed course and flew towards them, hoping to find another settlement. When I got close, however, I was spotted by several bipedal creatures using machinery. Possibly Alfinoids.”
“They are probably members of the local sapient species.” said the Advisor who stepped forward. “When the System was brought to this world it had several higher primate species which were close to evolving into sapient Alfinoid races. I would guess that they are one of those evolved primates.”
“In that case, we should say hello. It’s never a bad thing to be on friendly terms with the locals. Silan, I want you to take this scout, one of our warriors, and one of our mages to meet with this group of locals. Try to harbor a friendly relationship with them. Maybe even discuss trade, though you needn’t go into details for now.”
“Yes, milord.” said the advisor, Silan, with a hand over his heart and a bow. He called over one of the warriors who was on break nearby and a light skinned mage woman that was clearing stumps, then held his hand towards the ground. A round, flat disk two meters in diameter appeared. The four of them stepped onto the disk and it floated into the air. With a bit of direction from the scout, the four of them set off for the source of the System signal.
–
I set up the Recycler in the same shed as Greg and Bob, then ordered it to convert everything in the septic tank into hydroponics nutrients. Soon the warehouse and chemical warehouse had various salts and water in them. I then told it where all of the trashcans in the settlement were and that it needed to empty those as well, converting the trash into raw materials. That only took it a few minutes. It was faster than I expected. After that I turned my attention to all of the dead cars in the parking lot. The work crew had been pushing them out of the way, but at the rate the settlement was expanding we needed to do something with them.
I asked the recycler to assess one of the nearby electric vehicles. It had small amounts of several valuable mineral in it, including a considerable amount of lithium. In all, the System could pay a little over one thousand zerka just for its raw materials. That would be an easy way to make money, as we were starting to get low on funds. ‘Gary, do you think you can empty all of the fuel out of the non-working vehicles in your range and place it in the chemical warehouse?’
‘I will need to pause the clearing of the snow if you want me to do it quickly.’
‘That’s fine. After you have done that, transfer all of the personal items in them to the warehouse and have the Recycler scrap all of them and sell them to the System. We need the money.’
‘Very well.’ he responded.
Now that I had automated most of the food production at the Kitchen I didn’t need to go help them, so I looked around to see if anyone needed help. Most of the new people were staying inside to stay warm, but the salvagers had gathered around one hundred new recruits to help them bring in salvage from the area. We had let the salvagers move into the trailers last night, as they had helped move people, so they were the only ones that seemed to have had a proper shower. We would fix that soon enough. Maybe I could convert one of the shops into a bathhouse?
I talked to some of the new people and found out that two of the men used to work on the same construction team. That reminded me of something. I asked them if they could build a wall across the sporting good’s store’s showroom and they agreed. They would have to tear down other things for the materials, but, as one of the shops I had gathered everything from was a tool store, they had plenty of tools to do so. In order to speed up the process I asked them to hire eight more people to help them and send me a list of their team members, naming the one with the most experience as manager.
As they set off to go to work I heard some of the people in town calling out. I turned around to see them pointing at something in the sky. It seemed to be four people standing on a disc. Strange. The disk started landing beside the road, and I went over to talk to them.
Once it was on the ground the four people stepped off and one of them held a hand towards the disk, which vanished. I should figure out how they did that. “Hello.” I said, walking up to them and holding out my hand. They looked a bit unusual. There skin tone was just enough off that it drew your attention, as three seemed to have gray skin and the one woman with a staff had porcelain white skin. All four had white hair and long, pointed ears.
The oldest one stepped forward and looked at my hand. “Greetings.” he said. “I am from a group of people trying to establish a settlement north of here, and was dispatched by my lord to make contact with your settlement. Please escort us to your settlement leader.” His mouth didn’t match the words he was saying. He must be speaking another language and having the System translate for him.
“I am Greg Summers, the leader of this settlement.” I responded, pulling my hand back.
“Lord Greg,” the man said, and bowed, placing his hand over his heart. “I apologize for not recognizing your station. You are surrounded by so many of your serfs, that I assumed you were merely a freeman overseer. Please forgive me.”
“Oh, I’m not nobility and these people aren’t serfs. In fact our society no longer has serfs or slaves, unless you count prisoners that have to work as part of their sentence. No nobles either. Just rich people and politicians that use the law to armor themselves and create more laws to expand that armor.”
“Then your society is entirely made up of free people? Unusual, but not unheard of. I have met people from other societies that functioned similarly. In that case, what title should I use with you?”
“I suppose ‘Mayor’ will work if you need a title, but feel free to just call me Greg. There is too much work to do to bother with ceremony.”
“Yes, of course, mayor Greg. In that case, I am here to make peaceful contact with your people as well as to see if there is the possibility of trade between our two settlements.”
“I won’t turn down a trade opportunity. As long as you don’t hurt any of my people, you are welcome to trade with us. The only problem is seeing if we have anything that might interest you. Come,” I motioned towards the settlement. “Let me show you around and show you what we have to offer. Maybe you can find something you are interested in.”