( John POV )

Below us, the swathes of grass rustle against a gentle breeze. The water of the nearby river gurgles cheerfully, the roots of the bank-side trees cause eddies in the current as it drifts around a gentle curve, surrounding three sides of the promontory. A flock of colourful beetles chatter in the canopy of the waterfront copse, roosting in the safety of the shade during the heat of the afternoon. Across the waterfront, streaks of colour dash too and fro, tiny hummingbird-like creatures picking beetle larvae from the trees and ferrying them back to a large, nest-like structure. It’s a little garden of Eden, filled with fruit and berries and life. It’s perfect.

Beside me, Jade shifts.

“It’s got pretty much everything we need. Wood, clay, water, food, a thriving ecosystem. It’s quite defensible, thanks to the river. Definitely a good choice.”

I nod gently, eyes closed, just enjoying the noisescape. It’s easy to forget just how cool deep-dives are, when you use it everyday. I treasure the moments when I can recapture the wonder of teleporting into magical, impossible universes, only limited by human imagination. Alas, Jade has interrupted the moment, and since there’s work to do I decide to get to it.

“Yeah. Yeah, alright, this’ll do. Right, we’ve got a location, how do we get our community to move over here?”

Jade simply imparts her knowledge to me having mostly forgiven me for what happend earlier today.

“We set our tribal beacon here and our people will just, kinda’, migrate over. We get one placement free, after that it starts costing points, depending on your technologies and tribal species and how big the tribe is and so on. So, if your people are all in tents it costs way less than if you’re making them abandon stone cottages and stuff.

And I’m pretty sure it costs less to move centaurs and other nomadics about than it does to move, I don’t know, elves. What you’d expect, really.”

“Huh. Maybe we should have gone with centaurs after all. A nomadic way of life seems pretty flexible, and it would mean we didn’t have to worry about prey scarcity as much.”

Jade breaks up my chain of thought with some helpful information.

“Well, kinda’. Moving comes with some pretty major debuffs. Much lower chance of spontaneous tech discovery, lower birth rates, that sort of thing. It’s pretty risky, you have to hope you can offset the downsides with trade and raiding. Best to stay sedentary as much as possible and hope we can get some agriculture going.”

“Yeah… lack of agriculture is going to be a killer. We’ll still have to keep moving occasionally until we learn how to farm.”

I say acknowledging her judgement.

Jade nods, eyes distant as she trawls the rapidly-growing wiki.

“It’s actually better than you’d expect. The devs have hard-coded in a couple of species of fruiting trees that are absurdly productive, enough to support fairly large hunter-gatherer societies. It’s not perfectly nutritious - protein will be scarce, which is why it’s important to be *hunter*-gatherers, rather than just… gatherers. But while we’re still small, starvation is not an imminent threat.”

She turns to me, back in the present.

“Well, that’s pretty good work for one day. Anything else you want to check before we log off?”

“Yeah, couple of things. Starting with ‘blessings’, how does that all work?”

I ask with interest.

“Blessings? Basically, they’re one of the main ways we can interact with stuff. Or, as the marketing spiel put it, “generate diverse, emergent storytelling that engages the player with exciting and unique narratives”.

They come in two varieties; either you can plonk down a tonne of points for a big passive buff for your entire community, or you can add smaller, cheaper buffs to specific tribe members, that are much more powerful on that individual but much less cost-efficient overall. The individual buffs can be customised, too, although it’s really expensive.”

Intrigued I decide to ask further.

“Huh. How deep does the customisation go?”

“It’s not bad, actually. You get to customise depending on the natural potential of the person you’re blessing and possible abilities you have unlocked, although I haven’t worked out how the algorithm allows and disallows certain traits.”

Jade explains trying to clarify things.

“As I said, it’s mostly just really, really expensive. The point is to upgrade the rare individual into a history-altering, story-shaping legend, rather than use it regularly to patch up your fuck-ups.”

“Ah... I was just about to suggest we use it to buff someone into a healer or herbalist or something. I noticed earlier that we don’t have one.”

I say disappointedly.

Jade nods, frowning at the roosting beetles like they’ve committed some grievous sin.

“Indeed, we seem to be missing a vital part of any successful community. It’s been worrying me too. It wouldn’t be so much of a problem if we could use the suggestion interface to give them some medicinal knowledge, but none of the plants here have a real world equivalent. Which I suspect is intentional, in order to make early-game combat even more lethally risky.”

“Ah. Crap. So yeah, we’ll have to buy our health, either with points or… maybe we could trade for the knowledge with another player?

Anyway, what techs would we need to get herbalism or medicinecraft?”

I ask already dreading the answer.

“No idea. Still, I’ve yet to find any option to train anyone in either of them, so whatever the relevant tech is, we don’t have it.”

Stolen story; please report.

Just what I though, I sigh and dejectedly continue the conversation.

“Trading it is, then. Besides the goblins, have we encountered any other players yet? Any centaur tracks, stray strands of wolfkin fur, that sort of thing?”

“Nope, not so-much as an errant branch above goblin-height. A bunch more wildlife and few more varieties of berries, that’s about the lot.”

We stare down at the superb scene before us for a few moments. I realise that I don’t particularly want to go, not just yet.

“So, looks like we’ve got to wait until we meet someone, then. Otherwise, everything comes down to points.”

Jade nods. She extends a finger, and a pillar of light flickers in the center of the promontory, gleaming bright green off the carapaces of the beetles, highlighting veins of the leaves in the stark shadows of a midnight sunrise. Then, as quickly as it had come, it’s gone again, the wildlife bursting into frenzied motion as it panics.

I raise an eyebrow.

“When you said ‘place the tribal beacon’, I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so… flashy.”

“Not bad, eh? We’re well and truly started, now. Want to log out?”

I watch the wildlife settle again, the seeming threat having passed. I close my eyes.

“Not quite yet. I’ll stay for a few more moments.”

----------------------------------------

( Madok POV )

I scan the treeline, even though it’s far too distant to spot anything goblin-sized. I turn at the crunch of footsteps on dry grass, approaching from the camp.

“Madok! I brought a bite to eat, something to ease your watch.”

Yor grins and winks, handing me a bowl of stew before digging into his own. My lips twitch up in response. Just like Yor, to remember a friend out on watch. Always trustworthy, always reliable. One couldn’t hope for a better right-hand man, although he’s always dodged the top spot. It’s slightly annoying, actually, as it means I had to take it.

“Thanks, Yor. This is welcome indeed. It’s been a long day, staring South. How’d the hunt go?”

He rocks his head from side to side, noncommittally, and watches a distant beetle circling high above the grassland.

“Well enough, I suppose. We found a small herd of Bar-Yok, brought down a couple before the rest of them fled. It’s enough for a few days, before we’re back to berries.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes, eating the stew and watching the savannah in quiet companionship.

Eventually I decide to speak up.

“It’s been… four moons? Four moons, since we settled here. It feels like years.

It’s peaceful. Water from the river, good hunting, plenty to eat. The goblins haven’t got closer than the treeline. But I still don’t feel quite safe. I know you think this constant watch is unnecessary, but those raids… they could have been so much worse. We’ve been lucky.”

Again, Yor’s tone is detached.

“Could be. Could be. Certainly, it makes everyone sleep safer, except those on watch, of course. Helps that this is a lovely place. The bonding ceremony we had for Lani and Forgu last month was a good distraction from darker things, too.”

The memory of the occasion brings a genuine smile to both our faces. That had been the moment when the promontory stopped being a camp, and started being home.

“He took his time to ask her, that’s for sure. It was clear she was “blessed”, but Forgu was terrified the camp wouldn’t approve.”

Yor chuckles.

“Hah! Lani’s father was furious, when he worked it out. Stubborn bonehead. Still, Forgu handled it alright, once he’d worked up the nerve.”

“Hmm. It ended well enough, anyway.”

I remark, I take a good look at Yor and decide to push on.

“Tell me, Yor… Jormund… How’s he doing? You’re better at people than I.”

Yor grimaces and shakes his head, idly tossing a pebble into the shallow gully below us.

“Same as last time you asked. He still thinks you’re angry with him for failing to stop the goblin raid. That’s how he interprets all your vigilance against another raid. He takes it personally.”

“Still? I really hoped he’d had seen sense by now. I’ve told him not to worry about it, but he doesn’t believe me. Keeps away from me as much as possible, frankly. And it’s not like I can go looking for him the whole time, I have to put the good of the tribe first.”

“You do know that he spends every spare moment training, right? The boy has grown so much muscle in the last few months that he’s probably stronger than I am.”

He chuckles again, but it’s half-hearted, and his smile dies entirely when I next speak.

“He needs practice with the spear. Yor, I wanted you to train him.”

Yor is suddenly serious, eyes wide in surprise.

“That’s madness, Madok. It’s always the father who trains his son, premature death aside. Why even ask me?”

I grimace, staring back at the landscape in the gathering twilight. I don’t blame Yor for being shocked and uncomfortable at the request. My own discomfort sits heavy in my chest.

“Jormund... clearly doesn’t want to see me, not until he feels that he’s proven his worth. It’s a matter of pride, and he’s enough like my younger self that it’d be pointless to try and force him. So, I have to try and help him recover that pride. To do that, he’ll likely need to know how to use a spear, and you’re the best hunter in the tribe.That, and I trust you to teach him right.

I realise it’s not… traditional. But then, traditions change with the circumstances. Yor, I’d be proud to have you train my son.”

He nods, slowly, and my heart eases. I move the subject on, nothing more needing to be said.

“In the meantime, I’m bored of standing watch. While you train him, I plan to gather some hunters and explore the fringes of the forest. Far past time we started entering the enemy’s ground, rather than waiting for them to come to us.”

“You won’t take me with you?”

Disappointment and anger briefly flit across his face, rarely seen on Yor, but vanish as he works it out. He stands, taking the empty bowls.

“Hmmph. I see, you want the trackers and faster hunters with you, while the stronger and more experienced stay to protect the camp. Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I see your reasoning, for all that I think you’re being paranoid.”

He stretches, shoulders cracking, and turns back towards camp. As he strides off, resolved, he calls back over his shoulder:

“Fear not, Madok, I shan’t disappoint! The camp will be safe under my watch.

As for Jormund… Tales will be told of his accomplishments!”