Alright, Create Repeating Quest! James thought.

{You have activated Create Quest. -10 Tower Points. 2820 Tower Points remaining.}

{You have turned “Unnamed Quest” into a Repeating Quest. -150 Tower Points. -2670 Tower Points remaining.}

Oh, so it's a skill that has to be used on an existing quest. I'll need to keep that in mind, though a difference of ten points isn't something to worry about.

{(Input Quest Name)

(Input Quest Type)

(Input Quest Recipient(s))

(Input Quest Frequency)

(Input Quest Description)

(Input Progress Tracker)

(Input Quest Reward)}

So the only difference, aside from the cost, is the quest frequency field. James noted, before pulling up the list of frequency options.

I can decide how many hours it takes before the quest redistributes itself, or if it becomes available at the start of every day. I can also make it so the timer only starts once the quest has been completed, presumably to avoid a quest starting too soon after it was just completed, though I don't care about things like that. I already know people can't have multiple copies of the same quest going on at the same time, and I don't care about punishing people by making it so they have to wait longer to receive the quest if they took a while to complete it the day before. I'll set the quest to refresh at the start of every day.

From there, I'll just copy my 'Explore Floor 1' quest. But first... James took a moment to edit the title of the quest. I want to make it clear this is a daily quest, and having the amount of time the quest requires be mentioned in the title helps to separate it from the other quests more than just adding the word 'extended' to it like I'd been doing before. If the quest is going to appear every day for the foreseeable future, I'd rather it not be something as slapped together as 'Explore Floor 1! Extended Extended'.

{You have added “1 Low Quality Health Potion” to the Reward(s). -250 Tower Points. 2420 Tower Points remaining.}

{Daily Quest: Explore Floor 1 for 3 Hours!

Quest Type: Optional Single-Participant

Recipient(s): All Climbers on Floor 1

Frequency: Every Day at 00:00

Description: You must go outside the village to gather food and resources, and to find a way to the next floor. Spend three consecutive hours outside of the village walls to be rewarded for your efforts.

Time Outside the Village: 00:00/03:00 (Timer starts once outside of the village, and resets if the village is entered before completion)

Reward(s): 1 Low Quality Health Potion

Confirm Quest?}

I tried to expand the recipients to cover everyone in the tower regardless of what floor they're on, but repeating quests aren't able to exist on more than a single floor, apparently. Confirm Quest. James thought, and as 61-3 informed him the quest would be distributed to the proper recipients, James created another repeating quest.

{You have activated Create Quest. -10 Tower Points. 2410 Tower Points remaining.}

{You have turned “Daily Quest: Explore Floor 1 for 6 Hours!” into a Repeating Quest. -150 Tower Points. 2260 Tower Points remaining.}

{You have added “1 Low Quality Mana Potion” to the Reward(s). -500 Tower Points. 1760 Tower Points remaining.}

Confirm Quest. James sighed. Just like that, a thousand points are gone. I usually have three explore floor one quests going on at a time, but maybe I should leave it at two for now. I should also consider putting points aside to create another repeating quest for the second floor, so people have access to health and mana potion daily quests after they leave the first floor. All of that can wait for later, however. Right now, I want to build the carpenter shop. Village Menu.

{Floor 1: (Unnamed) Village Details:

Size: Level 0 (50 Meters in Diameter (Recommended Population: <400)) (Generate Upgrade Quest to Level 1 (75 Meters in Diameter (Recommended Population: <900)) (-100))

Walls: Level 0 (Wooden Stakes) (Generate Upgrade Quest to Level 1 (Wooden Logs) (-100))

Shops Enabled:

-General Store (Manage Items (Variable), Disable Store (-100))

-Bathhouse (View Description, Disable Store (-100))

-Canteen (View Description, Disable Store (-100))

Shops Disabled:

-Alchemy Lab (View Description, Manage Functions (Variable), Enable Store (-200))

-Armorsmith's Workshop (View Description, Manage Functions (Variable), Enable Store (-200))

-Carpenter's Workshop (View Description, Manage Functions (Variable), Enable Store (-500))

-Enchanter's Workshop (View Description, Manage Functions (Variable), Enable Shop (-500))

-Inn (View Description, Enable Store (-100))

-Library (View Description, Manage Functions (Variable), Enable Store (-500))

-Training Grounds (View Description, Manage Functions (Variable), Enable Store (-500))

-Weaponsmith's Workshop (View Description, Manage Functions (Variable), Enable Store (-200)}

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

I should read the carpenter's functions one more time before I buy it.

{Carpenter’s Workshop Description: The Carpenter's Workshop is a Shop that sells Furniture and Buildings, and through the Carpenter's Workshop, village customization through a modified version of the Village Menu can become accessible for climbers. To use this service, the ingredients along with a service fee in Gold must be provided, at which point the requested item will be made automatically. Both Furniture and Buildings come in set styles but custom requests can be provided for an additional fee. The range and quality of available items are dependent on the Floor the Shop is on, with Shops on lower Floors not able to handle ingredients only found on higher Floors. In addition to the above service, those with the Crafting Class: Carpenter, may pay for additional services such as borrowing the Workshop to craft their own items, or practicing new recipes. Lastly, unlocking the Carpenter’s Workshop will allow the General Store to sell any related ingredients that can be found on the same Floor, provided those ingredients have been sold to the General Store before.}

Alright, it's close enough to how I remembered it.

{Carpenter's Workshop Enabled. -500 Tower Points. 1260 Tower Points remaining.}

James watched as a patch of land inside the village started to glow. Most climbers that noticed had the sense to move away from the abnormal activity, and shouted for others to do the same. One climber hadn't left in time, but with a flash the person was harmlessly teleported to another point in the village. A wooden framework of a building began to form, individual pieces rising from the glowing ground before floating to their positions.

[Administrator James, please confirm the following quest.]

Right, they don't get the building for free. Let's see what it's asking them to do.

{Construct a Carpenter's Workshop!

Quest Type: Optional Multi-Participant

Recipients: Any (Quest accessible from within (Unnamed) Village)

Description: In order to use the Carpenter's Workshop, you must first gather the resources to construct it! Gather 2000 pieces of wood!

Wood Gathered: 0/2000

Reward(s): The shop: “Carpenter's Workshop” becomes available in (Unnamed) Village.

Confirm Quest?}

So it just takes more wood? Great! I can just recreate yesterday's quest that gave out 50 units of wood. Confir-hold on, I should edit the description first so they know the carpenter's workshop will help them add other shops to the village.

{You have activated Edit Quest. -5 Tower Points. 1255 Tower Points remaining.}

James quickly edited the quest's description so that it read "In order to use the Carpenter's Workshop (and use it to build other shops and expand the village), you must first gather the resources to construct it! Gather 2000 pieces of wood!".

There, now Confirm Quest. Next is to create a quest that offers a lot of wood as a reward so they can get it built before the day's end. Maybe I should make it a repeating quest too? But 50 units of wood would cost 500 points to add as a quest reward, and would they even need that much wood after the village shops are built? Firewood is always useful, but how much do they need every day? With the harvesting tools and the trees on this and the second floor, they can always harvest more if they need it, and with backtracking they won't ever be trapped on a floor without any means of acquiring firewood... It might be a good idea to include firewood as a repeating quest in later floors, just to ensure they always have some on hand, but for today I'll just recreate yesterday's quest as is.

{You have activated Create Quest. -10 Tower Points. 1245 Tower Points remaining.}

{You have added “50 Wood” to the Reward(s). -50 Tower Points. 1195 Tower Points remaining.}

Confirm Quest. Now if everyone manages to stay outside of the village walls for at least five hours, they'll have 10,000 units of wood... I doubt they'll all manage to do that today, and with only 202 people in the tower we're likely to have less than 200 by the day's end, but I only need around 50 to complete the quest to have enough wood to build the carpenter’s workshop.

The question now is, what should I do with my remaining points? I could create another monster slaying quest for a harvesting tool, maybe one for a bucket as well, since it's a cheap way of having water on hand… Although, with the bathhouse and well available, and the buckets people have already set aside to be used by everyone in the village... The only reason I'd consider giving another bucket as a quest reward now would be because with how many tower points I currently have, and might receive at the end of the day. the 125 Tower Points it'd cost to add a bucket as a quest reward feels negligible. But I've only been in charge of this tower for four days now, and that's hardly enough time to know how consistent the view count will be going forward. I don't want to get into the habit of wasting points without thinking things through.

James returned to the village menu, this time focusing on the general store, and the Manage Items (Variable) option listed next to it. I haven't checked this in a while, and considering that I can't change the price without the alternative requirements skill, or even the availability of anything without creating a quest that requires people to invest money into the shop, I doubt I'll find anything worthwhile to spend my points on. I haven't seen anyone buy the basic travel kit yet, and if they can't afford that, they certainly can't afford any availability quests. Still, the bathhouse and canteen both said they'd add items to the general store, and I want to see if they're available by default, or if I still have to change the availability of them. Plus, I suppose making quests that eventually allow the general store to sell everything will still come in handy, even if it won't matter for the first several groups of climbers, it might still be worth checking out everything I could make available in the future. James scrolled through the general store's inventory, stopping once he found an item that hadn't been listed before.

{Item: Wooden Bucket

Price: 25 Gold

Alternative Prices: None (Unavailable)

Status: For Sale (Change Availability (-10))

Description: A wooden bucket half a meter in diameter, and half a meter tall. Useful for storing large quantities of liquids, but unlike the waterskin, is cumbersome to carry, and will not protect the liquids from contamination, evaporation, or freezing when outside of a climber's inventory. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 90% of the material remains.}

People can buy buckets now, and it's already set at 'For Sale' status! That's great! Is it like that for everything else?

Frying Pan, 50 gold, For Sale. Soap, 50 gold, For Sale. Toilet Paper, an Iron Cauldron, even a collection of seasonings and toothpaste further down. It's all here, already available. The seasonings and better toiletries like shampoo are expensive, but none of it is made unavailable by default. This is a huge relief. Unlocking the stores will unlock the items related to their services automatically. Combined with this being the first floor, there isn't anything else to unlock, by the looks of it.

Alright, so the general store is taken care of, the carpentry workshop should be built by the end of today, and I'll hopefully be able to trust the climbers with managing the village from there, outside of double checking that I've enabled every feature I can in the shops with a 'manage functions' button. The only thing I can think of now is making the two quests to reward a bucket and a harvesting tool, but maybe…

"61-3, is there a limit to the amount of repeating quests I can generate?"

[Negative. However, it is recommended to have no more than 5 repeating on a daily basis for a single floor, or to have every repeating quest be exclusive to each other, to avoid providing climbers too much of an advantage.]

"But they won't stop me from making more than 5, will they?"

[Negative. So long as the rate of climber survival falls within acceptable parameters, you will not be penalized for exceeding the recommended limit.]

"Thank you." So the real administrators might get a little suspicious, but they probably won't do anything unless more than 90% of any climber wave survives. With how much it costs to create a daily quest with anything other than a health potion or a few materials as a reward, I think I can avoid being too obvious. It's not like I can create a dozen powerful daily quests all at once. At most I could make several quests to hand out potions each hour, since I can stack quests so long as the requirements aren't the exact same, and the difficulty is still enough to earn the reward. I could make it so a health potion is rewarded for being outside of the village for four hours, and five hours, then another mana potion for seven hours. Maybe by the time I get to ten or so I could add one of each…

Something to consider, but I'll hold off for now. I want to think more about what kind of daily quests I want to make, and the low quality health potions don't do enough to save you in the middle of a battle anyway. A lot of my views yesterday likely came from the excitement of an army of climbers fighting a seemingly endless wave of monsters, and now that everyone's aware of why that happened, they might not group up into such an interesting show. I'd rather everyone do whatever is best for them to survive, but that means I shouldn't bet on getting such a large number of points at the end of today, either. I'll save my remaining tower points, and go from there after seeing how everyone handles today, and what might be required for them to use the carpentry workshop to build the rest of the shops.

James closed the village menu, and turned his attention to the screen showing the village, as the people within prepared to leave the safety of its walls.