The tour didn’t take long, as we only had a few places of interest to show them. The four of them sampled several of the dishes at our restaurant. Apparently Helpers, as they called System assistant AIs, could tell you if food was toxic to you or not, so they knew that most of the dishes were safe to eat. They also connected to our Market and searched through what we had available. Few of the things we had in there were interesting to them, but they did notice the guns and alcohol. I spent a few minutes explaining to him how guns worked, and bought him a bottle of good wine for him and his boss.
After the meal we were standing outside talking about what they might be able to salvage in the area when Olivia walked up. “Is that really a Dark Elf?” she asked, interrupting the conversation.
“My race is actually a Sea Alf. Are you familiar with us?” said Silan.
“Oh, there are stories about people like you. Most are complete fiction, though.” she responded.
“People like you appeared in our world’s cultures a few thousand years ago.” I said, trying to avoid the topic of elves in popular culture. “They were said to be beautiful people with pointed ears who were the messengers of the gods. They also usually had magical powers and were from another world.”
“Interesting.” he said, “Some of my people must have come to this world a few thousand years ago.”
Olivia went over to the woman with the staff and started pestering her. “So, are you a high elf? Are you a mage? What’s your name? This is so exiting!”
“Uh, my name is Mar-eyon, yes I am a mage. My race is actually a tundra Alf.”
“So, you are from the cold area of your homeworld?”
“My ancestors were, though I am from one of the colonial ice planets. Our homeworld is tidally locked to our star, and my people are from the cold twilight area.”
While they chattered on, Silan looked at me. “Who is this woman?” he asked. “She is quite energetic.”
“Oh, she’s the daughter of the merchant Lawrence I introduced you to. She’s also one of the few Mages we have in the settlement.”
“Ah, yes, the merchant. If only we had attracted a merchant to aid in our settlement building. Our efforts could be much more efficient.”
“Well, having him here is a major boon to the settlement. I actually chose to settle here because he was here to sell us most of the things we needed.”
“That seems useful. Do you think he would trade with us?”
“I don’t see why not. Let’s go ask him.” We went into the PriceCo while Olivia continued to bother Mar-eyon. At least they were talking about magic now. It should be a safer topic.
After a conversation with Lawrence, Silan spent the next hour going through the shop terminal at PriceCo. He seemed interested in purchasing preserved foods. When he was finished I offered to give them one of the pig carcasses we had in storage.
“Interesting that you could get this many. I didn’t think the hunting was that good in this area.”
“Oh, these are actually clones.” I responded.
“You have a Conservation Core?” he asked in surprise.
“Yes. Is that uncommon?”
“Yes. Very much. Usually only the largest settlements can afford to purchase a Conservation Core. They are quite expensive in the Market.”
“Oh, well I actually found this one. I am currently using it to grow meat for resale. If you want some, I can sell it to you.”
“You were quite lucky, though you are underutilizing such a useful device.”
“How should I be using it, then?”
“Most settlements I know of that have them use them to produce monsters, either to bolster their militaries or to train their troops. Some grow replacement limbs for their injured people.”
“Interesting. Well, we don’t actually need replacement limbs, and I don’t really have a military yet, so this is the best I can do with it.”
“Very well. As for the meat, only the poorest Sea Alfs will eat red meat. We actually prefer fish and fowl. I’ve only eaten red meat twice, and that was when I was trying to work out a deal with some River Alf and didn’t want to upset them by rejecting their hospitality. I can take it back with me and see if some of the serfs want it, however.”
“That will be fine. If you prefer fish and fowl, then, how about this?” I removed a bag of chicken fingers and a bag of fishsticks from the food warehouse. “You can just bake these in an oven, but my favorite way to cook them is to put a little bit of oil in a pan and fry each side until it’s golden brown.”
“I shall tell the cooks about that.”
I nodded. “What do the rest of you want to try?” I asked his guards. They seemed surprised that I was speaking to them. Two of them wanted to try what fruit we had, so I gave one a frozen apple pie and the other a bag of frozen strawberries. Mar-eyon said that she was curious if we had a type of root vegetable similar to a type of tree root they farmed on her homeworld. Based on how she described the taste and texture, I assumed carrots would be the closest we had, and gave her a bag of them.
She tasted one. “These are kind of sweet.” she said.
“They are better if you cook them first. Try boiling them. It makes them sweeter.”
With that, Silan summoned his disk and the four of them climbed onboard. All of the gifts of food I gave them disappeared into their Inventory, which Silan had explained to me gave you a small amount of storage space in hyperspace. I downloaded it, but, like Eagle Eyes, it required the System to make modifications to my body and would only come into effect after I slept.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
After they left I checked on the sales for the day. The recycler was averaging between eight and nine hundred zerka per car, sometimes going over one thousand for an electric model. This might actually be the most lucrative way to make money at this point. I decided to check the total tonight, along with the warehouse sales, and left it running.
I had learned a few things about settlement building from Silan. The most important one seemed to be that I was using the more expensive, more versatile versions of System devices rather than just what was needed for the job. For example, there was something called a “Munitions Factory” which could make everything from arrows to power cells for plasma rifles. I could use it to replace the chemical plant, and manufacture the ammunition in one machine rather than two. The Factory that I bought to make guns can then be replaced by the Machine Shop, which can manufacture metal components more quickly, and therefore increase our production for less cost. Unfortunately, the System paid very little if you sold them back the devices, so the only way to get our money back for them would be to sell them to Silan’s people or one of the other settlements. I would just put the Factory in storage for now, and have the Chemical plant move to processing fuel or other chemicals.
I purchased a Munitions Factory and a Machine Shop for 2500 zerka each and went to the production shop. There was a brand new black wall built through the middle of the room, and I could smell the fresh paint that was still drying. The gunsmith was just finishing up a new AK47. “Hey, Philip.” I said. “I got you some replacement equipment. The stuff you are using now is a bit overkill.”
“Yeah,” Phillip responded. “I noticed that when I tried to pull up schematics for an M2 machine gun and started getting hyperdrive modules and artificial gravity components.”
I smiled. “Well, now you have a Munitions Factory, which can make bullets and arrows, and a Machine shop, which I doubt can make anything more complicated than an internal combustion engine. And it will work faster.”
“Great. Any idea what you’ll do with the old stuff?”
“Probably put it in storage for now. We don’t really need it.”
“Well, there were a few things in it that I was hoping to make, like energy weapons. But that seems a bit like overkill too, so it’s fine.”
I nodded and set up the two new devices, as well as expanded the Warehouse space. Once they were running I stored the two older ones. We could now put out ammunition at twice the old rate, and make gun parts 50% faster. “You know, your stuff looks like it’s selling well. If you need assistants you can hire a few people.”
“I might do that. The old factory only ran about a quarter of the time, and that was when it had to make ammo too. With a few more people we might be able to quadruple production, if not more.”
“Sounds good. I haven’t talked to many of the new recruits, but I’m sure some of them could be useful.” After chatting for a bit more, I headed out. I would have him make me something but I didn’t really need a gun and even if I did I had the one Paul sold me sitting in my RV. Maybe the other people here could buy from him.
It was about four in the afternoon now, so I headed back towards the campfire. It had become the unofficial meeting place of the higher ups in town, so maybe I would find someone there that had an idea how to improve the settlement further.
I was surprised when I got there and saw Tim. This was the first time he had visited us, so I was surprised to find him here. “Hey, Tim. I wasn’t expecting you to show up. What brings you out here?”
“Well,” he responded, “I was at the Kitchen dealing with all of the newcomers, and Jacob told me about you taking in over a thousand people. So I figured I’d come out here to see if anyone wants me to connect them to the System. After all, where would there be a higher demand for that service than where they need the System to use all of the services the town offers.”
“I didn’t think about that. I’ve been mostly hiring people that are already connected to work for me, because they can use the warehouse and other System functions, but only about half the people here are actually connected. You’re definitely welcome to do that. Just be advised that I pay people in System currency, called zerka, so they may want to pay you with that.”
“Oh, I’m familiar with Zerka. Some of the people who used the outpost in town also offered to pay in zerka. I charge five zerka for the service, or ten dollars.”
“Two to one exchange rate? Not sure what I’ll use as an exchange rate. I was thinking four to one, but I don’t really have a good frame of reference.”
“Me either,” said Tim, shrugging. “I only accept it because I saw some interesting things in the Market that I wanted to buy. I have no idea what normal things would cost.” Tim waved goodbye and headed for the dorms to offer his services.
Now that I was thinking about exchange rates, I could probably figure out a proper rate by offering the same things for cash and zerka, and seeing what they could sell for. I only really sold one thing for dollars, though, the pig carcasses. It gave me enough cash to deal with the odd salvager, but since I had plenty of salvagers in the settlement now, it might not be as useful.
I checked the Food Warehouse and noticed that there were seven pig carcasses in there, with Bob due to produce another batch of four tomorrow. They would make a good market experiment, then. As I assumed the exchange rate was probably somewhere around four to one, I offered the seven we had in storage for 500 zerka each. I would come back and check on them later. If no one wanted to buy, I could drop the cost, shifting the exchange rate in favor of the zerka. If they all sold quickly, I would know that they were undervalued, and shift more towards the dollar.
I sat down for a little while and noticed that many people were moving around, most heading towards the restaurant in hopes of not having to stand in line for long. It was five o’clock, the end of the work day for most.
I got up and started heading towards the restaurant as well, when Tony came running over. “Hey Boss, there’s something we need to talk about. Can we go somewhere private?”
“Sure, let’s go to my RV.” We walked over and went inside.
He sat down, getting dirt all over my couch and carpet. I would need to clean it later. “So, boss, it’s a little sensitive, but I noticed a problem today with the new people.”
“What, do they not get along with each other?” I asked. I hadn’t thought about how to deal with conflict yet. Maybe I should set up security?
“Actually, I think they might be getting along a little too well. I caught a couple going at it behind the PriceCo about an hour ago.”
“Going at it?” I asked, then realized what he meant. “Oh, yeah, that would be an issue. We have children in town now, so we need to make sure that stays private.”
“Exactly.” he said. “The only problem is that there isn’t anywhere private for them to go. The salvagers and the ten original settlers have trailers and private rooms, or at least roommates they can kick out for some privacy. But the vast majority of people live in the dorms. The fact that some of them are turning to prostitution to earn money when they don’t have a job just makes it worse.”
I closed my eyes and thought about it for a little while. The last statement would be dealt with when I or others created more jobs for the people to work. The shortage of rooms could only be dealt with by expanding housing, which we can’t do quickly enough. “Sounds to me like we need a place where adults can go but kids can’t, as well as some extra private rooms.”
“Ideally. I was considering hauling them down to the motels and letting them rent rooms for an hour at the time, but no one will want to wait for a bus just so they can hook up with someone they like.”
“True.” I thought for another minute before an idea came to me. “Then how about we go with an old fantasy staple? A tavern where you can meet people.”
“Or the modern version, a bar. Plenty of people go to bars to hook up. Though that doesn’t fix the issue with needing private rooms, though.”
“Well, we won’t need to use and entire shopping center business for the bar, just enough room for a hundred or so people to sit in to buy drinks and hang out. The rest of that room can be used to build rooms.”
Tony nodded. “In that case, mind if I take over the project? My guys can handle digging the trench and the other work we have set up. I can hire some builders and get to work on the bar.”
“Actually, I already have a crew building a wall in the gun factory. I was in there earlier and it looked like they were done.” I sent him their contact info. “Get in touch with them, they can probably help. We’ll need a good construction team anyway.”
“Sounds good.” he said. “Any budget on this or should we just salvage everything we need?”
“Well, we are running a bit low on zerka and cash, but I can spare a bit. I’m sure you’ll need to get a few things from Lawrence.” I handed him $2000 in cash. “As for System stuff, just contact me and I’ll buy it if I think we need it. That seems to be a lot more valuable recently, so I want to keep an eye on how much we are spending.”
He nodded, and left. Hopefully, in a few days, we would have a bar with a few extra rooms for rent. Dealing with all of these issues had worn me out, though. I decided to just stay in for the night instead of going to the restaurant. I needed to solve many problems, so I would have to put in a lot of thought for the next several days.
I spent the night thinking over what we could do for work. The salvage teams would be a big part of anything we did, but we would need some production facilities to make use of the material we were bringing in and to meet our needs. As for our needs, first would come food. We had plenty of stores for now, but it wouldn’t last forever. Once the spring got here we would need to make farms. Maybe I could start having people clear land nearby?
The other side of the road was mostly lightly wooded areas, warehouses, and office buildings. There was also the interstate just down the road. I could turn the warehouses and offices into additional businesses or housing, I guessed, though the amount of saleable salvage I would get out of an office building was probably low. The computers might sell for a bit, though. I should go over there and absorb all of the materials. If nothing else, the offices would make decent apartments. And maybe the warehouse would have something useful.
That didn’t give me ideas for work, though. What industries could the people work in? Well, most of them could probably go back to school. The System offered us many options that we never had before. Just teaching them to use their new abilities and the System itself could be good. The System also gives us access to all of the scientific information of over a thousand sapient races. Surely people will wan to learn that. It wasn’t work, but if people were training, they would at least have something to do.
The construction crew was also important. We needed to modify the buildings here, and even build more of them. The problem was that the home improvement store wouldn’t have enough supplies to build too many things. I doubt their lumber supply would be able to build more than one moderate house. That meant we needed to produce construction supplies. Which meant making lumber and concrete. Lumber should be easy, as they have the trees across the road. Concrete might be a problem though. To make that they would need limestone, which I didn’t know where to find.