At dawn Goliath waited at the edge of the town for Alan, Fred, and Samuel to show up, having already dropped Mirabelle with Ana for the day. The plan was to investigate the site where Alan thought the lost underground storage might be located, and to see if they could access it. Goliath had ensured he was fully armed and instructed Samuel to do the same. It wasn’t clear how effective the podgy town guard would be in a confrontation, so Goliath considered this mission ideal to get a feel for the man’s skills. Michael had been disappointed that he couldn’t also come, but Goliath needed someone to keep an eye on the rest of the settlers, especially if they were venturing into the surrounding countryside to gather food. Alan was coming along as their geographical guide, and finally the logger Fred would round out the group for some extra manpower.

  A settlement notification flickered in Goliath’s view.

  Quest for Alan completed: Settlement Layout

  Alan has created a settlement layout that will serve the settlement and allow for growth to village status. The layout schematic has been uploaded by the Town Interface Assistant, and is now available for use.

  New settlement options available

  Grass hut

  A fast and easy rudimentary construction option to house individuals or small families using mud, grass, and branches.

  - Can house up to three people

  - Will raise morale in the short term

  - Morale will decline if better housing isn’t provided within a year

  - Cannot withstand strong storms

  - No upgrade options

  Shed

  A rudimentary space to shelter animals, and store supplies and harvests.

  - Cannot be used to house people

  - No upgrade options

  Barn

  A sturdy space to shelter animals and store supplies and harvests. Can also be used to house people temporarily.

  - Can house up to 15 people

  - Will raise morale in the short term

  - Morale will decline if individual housing isn’t provided within a season

  - Can be upgraded to either a warehouse or town hall at an additional cost

  Log cabin

  Log cabins provide individual housing to settler families.

  - Can house up to 5 people

  - Provides a permanent boost to morale

  - Can be upgraded to a cottage at an additional cost

  So, Alan’s quest has been successfully completed. He must’ve been putting the finishing touches on before coming out to meet Goliath. That meant that Isaac and Ana would likely also finish their quest today, as they now knew where the future town’s edges would be and could identify smallholding sections accordingly.

  Going back to the new settlement options, Goliath carefully considered each one, deciding against log cabins almost immediately even though they were undoubtedly the most beneficial. They could even repurpose some of the settlement’s ruined structures to raise the cabins faster. The problem was that the cabins had a higher construction cost in terms of materials, time, and worker allocation. The settlement was lucky to already have three loggers on hand, but it would take them time to collect enough logs for … he did a quick count … seven cabins. And that was assuming that some settlers would be willing to share, based on occupation and family relationships.

  He also discounted the grass huts and sheds, as they were temporary solutions at best. Additionally, they would lose time constructing them – time that could be significantly better spent on other, more permanent solutions. A more efficient option would be the barn, which could act as temporary, rudimentary housing on top of providing a safe space to store supplies as they gathered them. This would allow the settlement to grow faster in the long run.

  There was, of course, the short-term impact on morale if the settlers’ living situation wasn’t upgraded fast enough, but he wasn’t worried about that. They had abundant natural resources surrounding their settlement and would be able to start on cabins soon after the barn was complete.

  So he nodded and selected the barn to be created. It beeped but didn’t activate. He frowned and selected it again. Once again, it beeped but didn’t activate. Well, this had never happened before. Was it another system malfunction?

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  ‘Tia,’ he called.

  ‘Yes, Founder Goliath?’ She replied as her light form took shape.

  ‘I’m —’ he started to say and then stopped, suddenly recalling something from the night before. He had a vague memory of Tia in their room, with glowing eyes. ‘Say, you weren’t in our room last night after we went to sleep, were you?’

  She flickered. ‘No, I was busy keeping an eye on the settlement.’ She flickered again.

  Is that the deception protocol? he wondered. It wasn’t worth pursuing, though. She was probably just checking on her Founder, which wasn’t a bad thing. ‘All right, because it would be rude to just appear in settlers’ bedrooms while they are sleeping.’

  ‘Of course,’ she responded lightly flickering once more. ‘Did you need me for something?’

  He refocused on his original problem. ‘I’m trying to queue a barn to be built, but the system isn’t accepting my selection.’

  ‘Ah, that’s because of your title restriction; building requires TIA approval.’

  ‘But, I can’t summon you to approve every little decision. The settlers will become suspicious.’

  ‘The title is clear on its restrictions; you need my approval for decisions.’

  Goliath pushed down his annoyance, since it wouldn’t solve anything. He wasn’t the real founder here, so he couldn’t compare his current experience with his freedoms back when he had his own town. More generally, it was also a big change from just giving commands and having to justify them to someone else for approval, and that someone else being an interface assistant, no less. Instead, he constructed an argument that he thought she would allow.

  ‘All right, so Alan has submitted settlement layout.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you approved it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Therefore, you would approve of buildings following that layout?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, can we agree that I do not need permission to construct any buildings that are concordant with the approved layout?’

  ‘Ah, I see. Yes, why yes.’ Her eyes glowed for a moment as she amended Goliath’s permissions. ‘The FAA may queue construction on any structure concordant with the approved settlement layout.’

  ‘Thank you, Tia,’ Goliath said and selected the barn option again. And again it beeped and remained inactive. Very much annoyed now, he said, ‘It’s still not working. What’s up with that?’

  Her eyes glowed again. ‘A payment or reward option is needed to employ workers for settlement projects. You should consult our settlement resource manager.’

  ‘What settlement resource manag— oh, wait,’ he said as he remembered who now held that position. Well, it didn’t take much time for bureaucracy to develop. It was quite vexing. The last time he was a founder, he had never bothered with these intricacies. Which is likely also how I ended up being ousted. But he wasn’t going to look for Ranca now, his team members would show up soon, and they needed to find the lost underground storage. So, he created another quest.

  NEW: Quest for Ranca: Create a payment/reward system – Urgent!

  Create an interim settlement payment/reward system so workers can be employed for settlement projects.

  Reward: Allocate yourself a suitable reward using the new settlement reward system, subject to Founder’s approval.

  Let’s see if Ranca is as good as she says, because I have no idea with what we can currently reward people with...

  ‘All right then, Tia. Can I queue the barn building to commence as soon as Ranca has sorted out a system?’

  ‘Barn building queued. Good luck with finding the underground storage.’ Her form flickered slightly. ‘And be safe, our founder needs you,’ With those words she disappeared.

  ‘I’m touched,’ he muttered with a bit of sarcasm and continued waiting. After a while, he spotted Samuel trudging towards him. He arrived a bit out of breath. ‘Sorry, sir. Normally, I’m up much earlier. It won’t happen again.’

  Goliath waved the apology away. ‘You’re actually right on time, despite the long day you had yesterday walking from here to Marbleville and back. We’re just waiting for Alan and Fred, and then we can be on our way.’

  ‘Thank you sir. Speaking of Marbleville, and while it’s just us, can I quickly talk to you about our experience yesterday?’

  ‘Sure, and you can call me Goliath for now. We’ll worry about command structure formalities once we have a force to command.’

  ‘All right then, Goliath. So, about Marbleville, I’m a bit worried about their intentions toward the settlement. Aside from them being a rude bunch, I happened to overhear a few remarks between their guards. It was something along the lines of “the Mayor said no admissions from that place, they’ll come crawling to us soon enough anyway, ready to hand over their territory”.’

  Goliath frowned. He couldn’t say he was surprised, but he hadn’t expected the mayor to be so open about his intentions. It also raised the question of why he wanted their settlement so badly. Just then he saw Alan and Fred walking up to them, Alan with a backpack and holding some instrument, and Fred with his axe and a shovel he must’ve borrowed from Isaac.

  ‘Thank you for telling me, I’ll have to think about how to handle it. But it looks like the rest of our team is here, so let’s focus on finding the underground storage for today.’

  As the team started walking towards the location Alan had identified, a voice rose behind them in the village. ‘A quest! I have a quest!’ Goliath smiled. He was glad to hear Ranca excited about something. I wonder what kind of system she’ll come up with, he thought as they left the settlement boundary.

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