Luxuriating in a – necessarily large – wooden bath, I got a good view of my enormous body. Well, at least as far as the vast stomach. From there, my lower half was completely out of view. Maybe Carlos felt at home like this and I wasn’t judging him from the point of beauty or shame. My dismay at the body I was in was a practical one. As it was, I couldn’t possibly help these people in battle. And I was so used to my own, fairly fit shape that for me, this was like being an imprisoning shell. I had an idea of who I was that was at odds with this person. It would take some serious work but I was determined to get in shape, not least for the sake of the battles to come. At least he was tall, taller than me, at about 6' 4" I'd guess. That was promising for the long term, if I could get the body into fighting condition.

While I didn’t want to make any important decisions about my character sheet until I had tested if I could improve my stats, I took some time to properly study the kingdom menus.

Greyland

Economy Military People

Currently building: granary level 2

Monthly trade income: 0

Monthly tax income: 54 gold

Daily food consumption: 13 units

Grain yield: 0 due in 17 days

Vegetable yield: 35 food units due in 21 days

Wool yield: 3 bales due in 34 days

Meat yield: 4 units daily

Timber yield: 17 planks daily

Iron yield: 2 ingots daily

Quarry yield: 6 blocks daily

Smithy yield: no production set

Weaving yield: 4 bolts daily

Research: steel pickaxes

Resources:

Wheat: 19 food units

Vegetables: 32 food units

Meat: 5 food units

Wool: 7 bales

Timber: 134 planks

Iron: 11 ingots

Stone: 33 blocks

Cloth: 0 bolts

All of these points of information could be opened for more detail, so I focused on the ‘currently building’ tab. There, I could see a graphic of a partly constructed wooden tower. The granary, presumably. In a timer that was counting down, there were two days and several hours left on a bar that was about half filled with green. I had other options, currently greyed out: farm buildings, level 2; hunting lodge, level 2; sawmill level 2; watermill; mine level 3; quarry level 2; smithy level 2; library level 2.

There was an obvious contradiction between the fact the kingdom was working on a new granary and there was no grain yield. Presumably, this was a legacy of losing the recent battle and the farmland. I should almost certainly swap the construction project to something else. Long term, it was often a good idea in strategy games to invest in research, which might be what the library was good for. But I had a real worry about the food situation. So without making any changes, and after shifting my hulky figure to swirl some warm water around, I looked at the Military sub-menu.

Military

Light infantry: 32

Heavy infantry: 12

Archers: 18

Light cavalry: 24

Heavy cavalry: 3

Ballista: 1

Hospital: 17

Military upkeep cost: 42 gold, 5 silver

Currently training: 2 heavy cavalry

Buildings: keep level 2; curtain walls level 1; towers level 1; town walls level 1

Currently building: tower machicolations, 3 days

I had no idea how big the armies in this world were, but with just a hundred troops the situation here was certainly dire. I suddenly had a dark thought. What if we were overrun? Slaughtered. What would happen to me? Would I get home? Respawn? Or just die, forever?

Although they were fundamentally important questions, there was nothing I could do to find answers to them, so I returned my focus to the menus. Each of these entries had options to drill down into more specific information, such as about the stats on the troops, but I just skimmed through them, wanting to understand the big picture items first.

People

Citizens: 485

Happiness: 14

Tax Level: High

Health: 89

Specialist roles

General: Lord Arval, Paladin Level 7

Royal Wizard: Carlena, Sorceress Level 9

Steward: Chancellor Parrin, Scout Level 9

Ambassador: Figus, Bard Level 3

Looking at the Citizens menu I saw a more detailed breakdown: Soldiers 110; Farmers 38; Builders 40; Shepherds 34; Hunters 48; Miners 84; Clothmakers 23; Bakers 23; Brewers 16; Carpenters 21; Stonemasons 14; Smiths 4; Researchers 4; Idle 26. It was strange how few were the numbers here. Was this because I had found myself at an early stage of whatever game-like system this world was based on? Or was there some other explanation?

This was interesting. For a start, the king had been lying to Chancellor Parrin for some reason. Far from being a Level 5 Scout, the thin man was 9. Then I found I could open up their character sheets and I did so for Lord Arval.

Lord Arval: Paladin Level 7

HP 64

AC 18

XP 19,663 (28,800)

Str 17 (18), Dex 12, Con 15, Int 8, Wis 9, Cha 9.

Shield of Defence +1, Trueblade +2, Ring of Strength +1, Potion of Haste, Potion of Healing.

Very interesting. I had to close my eyes for a moment, ducking down to soak my hair, but the character sheet was still there when I came back up out of the water. Firstly, I noted that Lord Arval had an XP bar. He could level up. That was encouraging for me, because it suggested that stats might evolve too. Secondly: magic items. Everybody loves magic items, but again I was particularly excited to see they could be used to change stats, as in Lord Arval’s Strength.

Time to check the others.

Carlena, Sorceress Level 9

HP 34

AC 5

XP 72,102 (86,400)

Str 5, Dex 11, Con 9, Int 17, Wis 7, Cha 8.

Brooch of Protection from Magical Missiles; Wand of Channelling; Potion of Transformation.

Chancellor Parrin, Scout Level 9

HP 53

AC 12

XP 71,043 (86,400)

Str 9, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 6, Cha 9

Dagger +1; leather jerkin +1; Ring of Silent Movement.

Figus, Bard Level 3

HP 17

AC 14

XP 684 (800)

Str 13, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 9, Cha 15

Scroll of Charm

Ambassador feats: Speak Language; Swift Travel

Pretty decent, or so it seemed. But everything was relative. What special roles did our opponents have? Maybe Chancellor Parrin would know.

By this time my bath was only lukewarm and so, with some difficulty, I stood up. Water dripping from me, I took a towel and when as dry as I could manage, a robe that a servant had brought me that looked clean enough. Outside the door of the bathroom was a young servant, who ducked his head when I left rather than make eye contact. After I was past him, he ran into the bathroom, to tidy up perhaps.

Lying in a comfortable four-poster bed, in clean sheets, I considered that I was blessed. Almost certainly, there were gods in this world. And if one of them had played a role in bringing me here, well, fair dues to him, her, or it. I sent a silent prayer of gratitude. This is what I needed. Not the trappings of being a king but the challenge. A kingdom under threat and an RPG system to wield to the best of my ability. I really wanted to get stuck into my own character sheet, but most of my decisions would have to wait until I had more information. And I was too tired to explore the menus much further.

There were two tasks, however, that shouldn’t wait until morning. I called up Greyland/Economy/Currently Building. There I switched the granary out and from the other options, dragged in hunting lodge, level 2. We were losing about 7 food units a day, with reserves of just 56. Obviously, I needed to resolve that, before planning on building something more strategic.

The other assignment I wanted to make was for the Smithy, which was not producing anything. The sub-menu, however, was complex, full of possible items like horse shoes, swords, shields and arrow heads that all looked extremely useful. There were tools I could create too, including hoes, which I was tempted by, as these would surely help my food output. Or were they limited to use in the kind of fields we had recently lost?

Wondering why my predecessor had left such an important building idle, I had a thought and checked the research queue. There was only four hours left on the countdown for steel pickaxes. Maybe he had planned on completing that research and then getting the smith to work on producing them. If so, it wasn’t a bad idea, all we really had going for us were the mountains around the town. If we could use sources of iron to build up tradeable reserves of iron and steel, that might be another way to solve the food crisis. So that decision could also wait until morning.

My head filling again with images of the town planning interface, I was asleep before I knew it.