They ate breakfast while discussing how the recognized settlement would change their lives. Ava was eager to leave, but Mark insisted she eat first. She was still celebrating yesterday and said the bird had found several things it wanted her to investigate.
As soon as she finished eating, she was off. Mark, Tom, and Dale finished their meals and talked about some of the plans for the day. Dale let Mark know that they were running low on firewood, so that was the first thing on the list to do. Tom was going to work on more leatherworking; he wanted to take some chest pieces he had made along with bracers and shinguards up to the cave and see what he could trade for more leather and other items.
Mark went west toward the stream and started looking for fallen trees. He would cut them into lengths and walk them back to the path back to camp. Then as they traveled back to camp throughout the following days, they could each take loads into camp.
He was on his fourth tree when he heard a pair of voices talking as they walked the path they had made yesterday from the stream to the camp. Mark stopped what he was doing and went to investigate. He found two people that he was not familiar with, but one of them he might have seen while he was in Lakeside.
The pair stopped and introduced themselves as Rowan, Lakeside’s trail runner, and Tessa, a hunter and trapper. As they walked toward camp, they explained that Jean and Edwin had sent them to establish a trade agreement if Mark had created the outpost.
When they got into camp, Mark introduced the pair to Tom and Dale. Tessa and Rowan told them they were impressed to see the well-created trail, as they had been told that Mark’s group had just learned about the settlement system.
Mark explained that they had quickly upgraded from a Level 1 outpost to Level 2 by improving the trail to their water source and were now testing the new settlement abilities.
They discussed the trade agreement that they wanted to form. They were looking for salt, resin, clay, and crafted tools. They were looking to give eggs, milk, fish, and some leather as trades. They were also interested in more of the exotic goods that might come out of the cave they had heard about.
Mark, Tom, and Dale talked over the offer. Dale was, of course, happy to have the milk and eggs. The fish he already had, but more variety would be nice too. Tom, of course, wanted more leather and suggested that he could make finished leather goods to include in the trades.
Dale also asked about getting goats and chickens. After discussing it, the two were not positive if they could, but they knew that they had traded baby chickens and goat kids to other groups and would ask what the village wanted in exchange when they got back.
They came to an agreement that their trail runner would stop by at least once per week to exchange goods and that, if they had a free person, they could come anytime they wanted with the trades if they needed something sooner.
They then sent the official trade agreement to the outpost, and Mark accepted it on behalf of the group. Before lunch, they discussed their current projects and exchanged the goods they already carried. Rowan and Tessa took Lakeside’s requested items, while Dale stored the settlement’s new supplies.
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Mark was surprised and happy when he received a system message about the completed trade agreement along with its terms and then a healthy amount of XP for setting up and negotiating the arrangement. After a quick conversation with Dale and Tom, he found out they also got XP for being part of the negotiations.
Mark let them know that his plans were to now go up to the cave and see about the system message he had received about the cave’s adaptation and invited the pair to come along. They both agreed, and they were pleased to realize that they followed a different trail northwest towards the cave rather than going back to the stream and following it up to it.
They went up to the cave and found the full group from before sitting around the campfire chatting. They introduced the pair from Lakeside, and they talked about what everyone’s guesses were on the changes. Mark reviewed the previous night’s messages. Cave Control had reached 23%, so passing 20% had most likely triggered the evolution.
The group from Lakeside was surprised to find out that they had created an outpost there also. The outpost was still Level 1 and could not accept trade agreements until Level 2, but they talked with the group and explained the benefits of trade and reasons to upgrade when they had time.
They all sat around and just chatted until they received the system message.
[Cave Evolution Complete]
Adaptive cave stabilization successful.
New cave pathways detected.
Threat assessment updated.
Recommended Expedition Level: 5–8
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Mark noticed that the level had again increased. It had originally been levels 3–6, and after 10%, it had changed from levels 4–7. That might mean that the cave would become a valuable leveling location for those that are truly interested in those things, which he was not. Then they got a second message.
[Instance Parameters Updated]
Additional cave pathways unlockedEnvironmental variation increasedElite entity probability increasedResource diversity expanded
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There were quite a few that were really excited about this. Others were more concerned that if it kept rising in level, the threats might outpace them.
They counted thirteen people. The others explained to the Lakeside visitors that only five participants could enter an expedition and only two instances could begin every ten hours.
Mark, Dale, and Tom quickly told the group that they would wait for another day to try it out and let the two new visitors from Lakeside go. The rest of the group paired up into groups of five, with the two from Lakeside each going to a different group. Without any delay, the two groups rushed in like there was a race to see who got there first.
Dale walked over to his cooking area at this camp and started cooking. He knew how hungry they would be after the run. Mark and Tom decided to start marking the trail from the cave down to where their trail was. They were on the west side of the stream, and their trail to camp was on the east, but they figured it would count as another recognized trail if they marked it all the way down and then built a small rock pile in the center of the stream, marking its connection.
Over the next hour, the pair moved about twenty feet at a time, pulling rocks from the stream to build a marker before continuing to the next spot. When they finally got down to the stream, they built the marker in the middle and were happy to get a system message that said they had connected another path to their outpost trail system, and they both gained XP.
When they returned to the cave, they found out that neither group had yet come out. Mark and Tom decided they had other projects they were in need of and asked Dale to find out any details and let them know when he came back to camp. They also asked Dale to wish the Lakeside people safe travel as they headed back to Lakeside and to let them know that they had marked the trail down the stream to where it crosses the stream heading to their camp.
As they walked back to camp, Mark thought about what he would do next to beat Ava at the leveling game.