By the time the carpenter's workshop was complete, most of the veteran parties had made it back to the village. This included the party that discovered a safe zone and the level cap, but they didn't say anything about it yet to the village at large, simply telling one of the other veterans they'd have something to talk about in the next meeting. More importantly, with the carpentry workshop completed, everyone was eager to see how it worked. The group of veterans that had been trusted to look at the carpentry menu pushed past the wooden double doors, revealing that the workshop was all one room, divided only by a counter one could easily climb over. Although there's probably an invisible barrier preventing someone from doing so, just like with the hallways in the bathhouse, and the kitchen in the canteen.

On the side of the workshop meant for customers, there was a raised square platform at least two meters wide, with a step on the side that faced the entrance for people to walk onto the platform. One of the climbers approached it, but a screen appeared in front of them, at the same time that a barrier stopped them from placing their foot onto the step.

{Please select the furniture you'd like to demo before stepping onto the platform}

"Furniture? We can buy furniture here? The quest never said anything about that." The climber said as they stepped back from the platform, turning to the climbers who were grouped up in front of the workshop menu, many of them frowning at it as one of them scrolled through it.

"Yeah, the menu has a “Browse Furniture Menu” as its first option. Below that is... “Commission”." One of them said, before clicking on the first button. "We can have a bed frame built, a cabinet, a chest, a bookshelf, tables, chairs... Anything made out of wood... Oh wait, there's also a stone bathtub, and a brick oven?"

"Wouldn't that be more like... What's it called... Stone masonry?"

The group responded with a round of shrugs.

"There's also stuff like, a broom, and a mop with a bucket, but the bucket isn't even half the size of the ones the General Store offers... Oh, probably 'cause it only costs 5 gold, and 5 units of wood?"

"A plain wooden chair is the same price..." Another added.

I don't care about the furniture, but I can't fault them for being interested in it. If I was in their shoes I'd be eager to find out what I could buy and how the cost of gold and resources changes depending on the size and complexity of the item. "I still hope they don't take more than a minute on this though," James muttered to himself, "I want to see how the village menu works on their end."

[James, the village management function of the carpenter's workshop is disabled by default. The function must be enabled by you through the village menu before the option will be made available for climbers.]

"Oh! Thanks for the heads up!"

James quickly opened up the village menu, finding the Carpenter's Workshop now under the “Shops Enabled” list, and focused on the words “Manage Functions (Variable)”.

{Carpenter's Workshop: Manage Functions:

-Premade Furniture Options: Enabled (Disable Function (-10))

-Commission Custom Furniture: Enabled (Disable Function (-10))

-Commission Custom Housing: Enabled (Disable Function (-100))

-Village Management Menu: Disabled (Enable Function (-1000))

-Workshop Access: (Tower Modifier: “Crafting Classes” required.)}

James mentally reeled at the price as he found the function he wanted to turn on. "A THOUSAND points to give climbers access to the village menu? Why is it so expensive!?"

[The price of altering any shop's functions is based on both the amount of power a function gives to climbers, and how much climbers are expected to desire to use the function. The option to give climbers access to the village management menu is considered to be both highly desired and highly influential in determining the survival rate of the climbers on this floor.]

Damn. "That makes a lot of sense, actually." Presumably, the point system for Administrators exists in part to make the more dramatic changes in the tower cost the most. The more entertainment you bring, the more control over things you're given.

I have enough points, but it'll cost me nearly everything.

{Carpenter's Workshop Function: Village Management Menu, Enabled. -1000 Tower Points. 195 Tower Points remaining.}

Even with nearly 200 tower points left, it feels like I have barely anything left compared to what I had before. At least it's already late in the day, so I’ll be getting more points soon. "Thanks again for letting me know about the village menu, 61-3. Please keep giving me a heads up on things like that, if you can."

[You are welcome, James... I... am not meant to provide advice or hints on topics I am not directly asked about. I provided information on the village management menu because of your statement about it, and prior experience indicating you may not have known about the function being disabled by default. I will attempt to judge when unprompted advice will be beneficial to you, but results may be... Unsatisfactory.]

"That's fine! I don't mind if the advice isn't helpful or redundant." It just feels nice knowing you have my back. James thought, but didn't say. "The worst that can happen is it takes a few seconds of my time to tell you I already know whatever you're telling me. I'd rather have that happen 100 times than have something important slip through the cracks."

[Understood.]

With that matter settled, James turned his attention back to the group of climbers inside of the carpenter's workshop.

"Try out the demo feature." The climber that stood near the raised platform suggested, and after a moment spent searching for the button, above the "Add to Cart" button in the bottom right corner, the platform began to glow. In only seconds, a pillar of light shot out of the platform, tall enough to almost reach the ceiling of the workshop, and wide enough to cover the entire surface of the platform, before promptly disappearing, leaving a plain wooden chair in its place.

Flashy.

The climber closest to the platform watched as the screen telling him not to step onto the platform disappeared, along with whatever invisible barrier the platform had before. The climber stepped up, slowly reaching a hand out to the chair, before pushing it just enough for it to briefly tip back onto two of its four legs.

The climbers watched silently as the chair wobbled back into place, at which point, the climber on the platform sat down on it.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"It's not very comfortable... I wouldn't pay to sit in this unless I had no other choice. Do we have any better chairs? One with a cushion at least? This is about as comfortable as a plastic school chair."

"Oh! There is one, it takes the same amount of wood and gold, but also asks for... "Cloth or Hide Material of any Quality."

"Oh, like leather and hide armor the goblins wear."

"Can you even use that? Their armor and weapons vanish whenever we sell them."

"Yeah, but you can choose to separate the goblin's corpse from their equipment. “Simple Goblin Armor” mentions it can serve as “Poor Low Quality Hide Material”."

Apparently I've missed out on some things, despite all of my eavesdropping. At least that guy didn't know about it either.

James watched as they switched to different chairs, including at one point a sofa and an armchair. The ones with leather, hide, or cloth all had a note on the shop screen when used for a demo, stating low quality materials were used for the example, and results may vary. When the sofa was brought out, one of the climbers suggested they take a break so they could enjoy the product they couldn't buy, just to have a comfortable place to sit for the first time in days, but the idea was shot down due to the number of people waiting outside.

"It'd take hours for everyone outside to have a turn, and it'd be an insult to their trust in us to use it ourselves right now. We're here to gather information, not play around." With that, further “playing around” with the demo feature was stopped, with only a few moments spared to test things like trying to store, move, or damage the demo furniture. You can move things around within the platform, but can't take anything off of it, and putting any items into your inventory is outright impossible. The demo platform doesn't even let you take things out of your inventory while you're standing inside of it. You can break the furniture, but the same rules apply to any piece of the furniture you break off, no matter how small or damaged. At least destroying the demo furniture doesn't trigger any penalties, and you can demo an undamaged version of any furniture you break right away.

"Alright, that's enough of that. We need to find what lets us add shops to the village." A climber said, moving out of the browse section of the menu. This time, a third category appeared below the “Commissions” button, listed as “Village Management”.

"Hey, I think this is it!" The climber closest to the console said.

"Was that there before? I only remember two options..." A climber standing behind them said, trailing off as the one in front gave a half shrug with one hand while selecting the third option with the other.

{Village Management Menu:

Village Name: (Unnamed) (Name Village (-10 Gold))

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

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

Shops Enabled:

-General Store (Disable Store (-100 Gold))

-Bathhouse (View Functions, Disable Store (-100 Gold))

-Canteen (View Functions, Disable Store (-100 Gold))

-Carpenter's Workshop (View Functions, Disable Store (-500 Gold))

Shops Disabled:

-Alchemy Lab (View Functions, Enable Store (-200 Gold))

-Armorsmith's Workshop (View Functions, Enable Store (-200 Gold))

-Enchanter's Workshop (View Functions, Enable Store (-500 Gold))

-Inn (View Functions, Enable Store (-100 Gold))

-Library (View Functions, Enable Store (-500 Gold))

-Training Grounds (View Functions, Enable Store (-500 Gold))

-Weaponsmith's Workshop (View Functions, Enable Store (-200 Gold)}

"A hundred gold..." Another climber behind the one at the menu gasped, and ran a hand through their hair as they stared at the screen with their eyes wide.

"We should have enough for at least one of the stores, if we all pool our funds together."

"No one's even bought the basic travel kit yet! Even working together, it'll still cost… 2,200 gold to buy all of the stores!"

"The menu says the current size of the village will only hold less than 400 people. If we get about fifty new arrivals a day..."

"I think more than that survived the tutorial last time, but even with only 50 people surviving, it would rely on each group reaching the next floor within a week..."

"We should probably upgrade the size level first, then. It's no use having all of these stores here if not everyone can use them. People camping outside of the village will still draw monsters in, so leaving people outside all night isn't an option."

"So this carpentry shop just bought us another list of things we can't afford." One climber surmised.

I wonder if having a village on the first floor was a mistake... No, the safe zone that one party found was barely big enough for more than a dozen people. With so many people joining the tower every day, if there hadn't been a large safe zone like the village for them to use as a base…

Even if this floor doesn't provide enough money for them to use the shops here effectively, it's still better than leaving them with nothing, but I'll need to invest in quests that have gold as their reward, if they're going to be able to make use of the shops here. I can always add the shops myself if I have to, but I'd prefer to spend the points elsewhere.

James and one of the climbers both released a heavy sigh as the weight of the work ahead loomed over them, before the climber closed the Village Management Menu and moved on, clicking on the last tab labeled “Commissions”.

{Select Commission Type:

-Furniture

-Building}

At the second option, a light shone in the climbers' eyes, the one at the screen standing up straight before he clicked on “Building”.

{To begin creating your Commission, please select from the following creation options:

-Upload Drawing

-Enter Text

-Manipulate Model (Requires existing Template)}

The climber selected the second option, and a text box appeared as a section of the menu bent, until half the screen had become like a laptop, the bottom half now a digital keyboard.

"I doubt this'll work... But maybe we can commission one of the shops here for a different price?" The climber at the front spoke.

"If the pricing for commissions is anything like the furniture... I don't think it'll work, the price was about 5 gold for the base price, along with another gold for every ten units of wood the furniture required after the first ten. If the shops typically take 1000 units of wood to build..." Another trailed off.

"It's worth a shot though, yeah?" The lead climber said as they typed the words "Armorsmith's Workshop", and after hitting the enter key, an image of a wooden building appeared on the top half of the screen.

"There's... Nothing inside of it." The climber remarked, as he swiped at the screen, realizing they could rotate the image and zoom in or out by touching the screen.

"Maybe we'd have to buy the furniture separately? And this is what the Armorsmith's Workshop would normally look like?"

They checked the price, and one of the climber's groaned as they saw that it would cost 1000 Units of wood, along with 104 gold coins.

"That's nearly the cost of building the whole thing through the other menu, but without any of the tools!"

With a round of grumbling, the climbers admitted defeat.

"Well, we got the info we came for. Let's head out and share the news, then we can all discuss what to focus on first." The lead climber said, the others nodding in agreement as they made their way outside.