The wind parts the grass, creating waves of flowing green and brown. On the horizon, dark clouds loom for the first time since we arrived, and who knows what kind of storms alien planets have. We have work to do, but it will have to wait until the storm passes. Lynn marches the men whose minds she has swayed, and I follow behind, thinking.

I don’t know what the village will look like, but it seems we will have enemies attacking right off the bat in the form of Gershwin and his loyal band of soldiers. They can’t threaten us, but they can bother us. People won’t want to kill other humans, and so long as they don’t try to kill any of us, we don’t have a good reason to slaughter them. That would be terrible for morale, and… there might still be a chance to reach them.

The wind blows heavily, carrying the scent of an impending storm, and while I can tell that the air is cool, it doesn’t bother me at all. The cold of my sword is far worse.

We quickly reach The Barrows, and the new recruits are led inside to be introduced, sorted, and equipped, and I finally make a detour. Standing on top of a nearby hill, I survey the land with a frown; none of this is remotely suitable for building on. We have hills everywhere, which will greatly hinder the building of walls or orderly buildings. Everything will be at an angle, or have to be highly supported in order to stand upright… no good at all.

While Marie could probably level the entire area, given enough time, I think the system probably has some way of dealing with the terrain. This is the starting zone, after all, so maybe it levels everything for us? Either way, it doesn’t make a lot of sense structurally to build right on top of a cave, but we need it near enough that it can easily fall inside our walls, when we build them.

I opt to put it right next to the hill that contains The Barrows. That way, if any automatic leveling of the terrain happens, it won’t destroy the dungeon. If it doesn’t level anything… I guess we’ll deal with sideways houses. When the last of the Carnines had stepped outside whatever arbitrary boundary marked the plains from the forest, a crystal had appeared in my hand, humming steadily. The system claimed I should crush it and sprinkle the fragments where I wanted the center of the village to be, and for once, I follow the instructions. The crystal is easily crushed into a fine dust, and I stoop low before spreading the fragments; the wind would easily have stolen all of it away otherwise.

Wouldn’t that be fun: a village suddenly appearing in the side of a mountain. I bet a certain dark entity would find that very amusing. The shards sparkle in the grass, and the wind still manages to spread them around quite a bit before they land, creating a panic inducing whirlwind that fortunately swirls into the ground where I intended.

Long seconds pass with nothing happening other than the continued rushing of the wind, but I can’t even enjoy it with the immense anticipation I feel. Come to think of it, I probably should have told someone I was doing-

A small popping sound cuts easily through all the other noise; a highly unnatural thing because it seems to almost lower the volume of everything else around it so as to be heard without itself being louder. The wind stops entirely for a moment, but then rushes in again, but from a different angle. The sound of splashing water… that wasn’t there before. Did the rain start already? But, no, the sky is still clear overhead, and though the clouds are rapidly approaching, there is no- … well, there’s no rain, but there are suddenly buildings everywhere, and the source of the water noises seems to be an ornate fountain in the center of it all.

The system, it seems, created more ground and dirt at the exact altitude I placed down the shards, meaning there’s a giant square of suddenly raised dirt. Fortunately, I made this far enough away from the Barrows that I didn’t accidentally bury everyone alive, but they definitely should have had warning text or something. Most of us could have probably survived being entombed in ground, but it wouldn’t have been a pleasant experience.

And for the new people? Hey, welcome to the group, here’s where you’ll sle- bleeeeh! Now you’re drowning in dirt! Hah, we’re so quirky- no. They’d fucking leave, immediately, even if they believed Lynn’s assurances that ‘this never happens’ and ‘this is definitely Amadeus’ fault’. Well, it would be, but I don’t appreciate how quickly this mental version of Lynn threw me under the bus.

Either way, it didn’t happen, and nobody seems to have witnessed my exceptional work of magic, so I get to explore all the new buildings first!

In front of me is a large building with a helpful sign out front labelling it ‘Town Hall’. To my left is a long, rectangular, two story building called ‘Bunkhouse 1’, and on my right is ‘Bunkhouse 2’ with the same design. Behind me is the ‘Merchant Center’, a large, flat square of a building with many windows. Past Bunkhouse 1, there’s a section of what looks like blank space, but it’s furrowed… almost like it was plowed. Past Bunkhouse 2 is a gigantic building labelled ‘Warehouse’ and next to that is another flat building, similar in many ways to the Merchant Center, called the ‘Artisanal Center’.

The system delivers, that’s for sure.

I opt to check out the Merchant Center first, though I have an inkling of what I’ll find there. What is clearly the main entrance, judging by the large, ornately carved wooden doors, faces the center of the plaza containing the fountain. A small outcropping of roof extends along the outside of the building, creating a slightly sheltered area around the entire perimeter, which would sufficiently protect people from the sun, but would have much more of an issue with rain if there was any wind at all. I gently push open the doors, finding the suspected lack of almost anything interesting. Clearly the system expects these shops to be run by people, though why it would encourage commerce is beyond me.

There is, however, one occupied stall. In the center of the building, a small stand is set up, with the opening directly facing the entrance… and inside, a dark mannequin looking thing stands and smiles.

“Fuck.” I’m immediately tempted to run. That evil fucking nightmare bullshit is what scared me off a cliff and what supposedly brought us here in the first place. And now it’s sitting in a shop, a static semblance of a smile plastered on its face. It, however, doesn’t react to my presence at all. Even waving at it elicits no response whatsoever. I remember it being more… animated. Maybe it’s just waiting for me to make a fool of myself for its amusement again. The bastard.

Despite my reservations, I make my way towards the entity. As I approach, it remains completely still up until I’m within five feet of the stand, when I hear a familiar voice in my mind: “Greetings traveller! Would you like to browse my wares?”

“Cut the shit, why are you here?”

“Accepted responses are: Yes; No!”

“Get bored of tormenting people and now you’re taking a side gig as a shop owner? Going to sell us overpriced trash that’ll end up killing us when we rely on it?”

“Accepted response not detected. Defaulting to ‘no’. Have a nice day!”

“What the fuck-”

“Greetings traveller! Would you like to-”

“Fine! Play the ‘dumb AI’ part, see if I care. What do you have?”

“Accepted res-”

“Yesss.”

“Very well!”

A notification appears:

[Iron Sword - 15 cp

Iron Shield - 20 cp

Leather Armor (Set) - 100 cp

Mana Battery (small) - 50 cp

Power Ingot (small) - 100 cp

Power Ingot (medium) - 175 cp

Waterskin - 2 cp

Leather Cloak - 10 cp

Wood Material - 5 cp

Stone Material - 20 cp

Iron Material - 50 cp

Food Ration (3 Day) - 5 cp

Water Ration (3 Day) - 3 cp]

A brief survey indicates that there’s actually some fairly useful stuff, though the most interesting things have to be the ‘Power Ingots’. They’re pretty expensive, and I’m not sure how people are supposed to gain the Power without Energy, but… actually, I need to ask about that. People don’t talk that much about the tutorial, but I have to assume someone also got the bonus at the start.

Either way, I’m pretty sure we collectively have like thirty or so copper coins, giving us just enough for some basic stuff if we wanted it… but I’d be on the side of saving up. We don’t have enough iron as it is, especially now that we’ll be arming all these other people, and it seems to be a fairly rare drop. That, combined with the fact that we now have nothing that we should kill that drops loot during the day, means we need some way of getting it… but then how do we get money?

I feel frustration mounting for a moment before smacking myself in the head. Zathis mentioned more dungeon right behind him… and I haven’t spoken to him since the battle concluded. I’ll just finish checking the other buildings and go catch him up to date… and maybe explore a bit of the dungeon. And resummon Kaythe. Fuck, there’s so much to do.