Mark woke up the next morning early and went down to the common room to get some breakfast. The room was more crowded than he expected; there were many people all eating and talking. He listened to conversations about rumors of the cave and the building of the Forgeworks there. Others were talking about the wheat trades they heard were coming. One person complained about people wanting to move east and leave the village behind.
One group was arguing over whether they should trade livestock or keep it all for themselves. Another person replied, asking if they should then keep all the wheat and metal goods for themselves, too. There was excitement, skepticism, and fear in the conversations he heard. All in all, though, there was a lot more excitement than fear.
Cora and Elias both showed up at about the same time, and the group finished eating about the time a representative came to get them for the meeting with the village council. They followed the man to where the council was waiting, and Mark’s group joined them and sat down in the chairs they provided.
Alden stood up and introduced those on the council. They were Alden, Brenner, Vera, Colm, Petra, and Harlan. They each in turn introduced themselves, and then Cora, Elias, and Mark introduced themselves. They had a list of things they wanted to discuss and took the lead in the conversation.
The first item on the list was about metallurgy and the Forgeworks project that they were told about. Mark went through the discoveries at the cave with ore, mine picks, and other mining information. He talked about the Rootmaw Alpha fight and the metallurgy book he received as a reward and the system directing them to specialize and learn how to work metals.
The group discussed their hopes for what metallurgy could provide. Reinforced wagon wheels, proper axles, hinges, plow fittings, stronger tools, saw blades, and many other uses. They indicated to Mark their struggles with transportation with the inability of the materials they were using to deal with the rugged roads and transportation needs.
Cora expanded on the transportation problems, the need to improve the roads and networks used, and their desire to get wagons and horses. While traveling, she had seen many roads in disrepair and learned ways they could be improved. She would like to help their village with that part of their transportation issues.
The next major item on their agenda was the wheat and the ability to transport large amounts of it to help with the town’s needs in feeding the number of people they had. They talked about limitations, how their farmers had skills that Elias could share with them, and about the southern region that Mark had planned out to make a village and other outposts to support the wheat trade and other future agriculture needs.
It took Mark and Elias a while to convince them of the size of the area and the amount of wheat to harvest. Several council members thought Elias was exaggerating. Elias also shared with them the growing experiments his wife was doing and how amazing the land was and the easy access to water and future irrigation and plans for other crops in addition to the wheat.
The next item on the list was their livestock. They had many different types of animals but did not have the land or the food to increase the herds, and with their limitations in transportation, they had not previously had the ability to trade long distance.
Elias was most interested in the beehives, the sheep, and the oxen as labor for the farms. He could use the oxen to start plowing fields and the sheep so that they could get wool and be able to start textile industries. Cora talked about the need for transportation and about the needs of horses and pack mules for transporting goods.
The village leaders expressed their willingness to help them start new herds. They were only concerned that they would get a good deal in the trades and that support would be ongoing so that they could continue to grow their village into a town.
Mark then asked them about it; he knew the requirements to make a village but not what came after that. The leaders let him know that to upgrade to a town, the only requirement they did not currently meet was large-scale food production, and that was the biggest thing they needed and wanted out of this arrangement so they could progress to the Town level.
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Mark asked, “What exactly are the requirements for town advancement, and what is your current village level?”
Vera replied, “We are currently at Village Level 3. To create a town, you need:”
35+ permanent membersmultiple specialized professionspermanent trade routesstructured leadership roleslarge-scale food productionstable defenses
Vera continued, “We are still growing in population and professions, but our food production cannot scale up at the rate we keep going. When people started heading off to see the cave and all the things going on east, it was a blessing to us. But we need a major change to get to a point we can grow.”
Mark said, “The system keeps pushing us to specialize. No settlement can do everything alone. My Frontier Steward class is not about controlling people. It is about connecting settlements, professions, and trade so we can build something that lasts.”
“Forgeworks and the profession instances are part of that. We need builders, farmers, livestock handlers, wagon makers, miners, and people willing to develop the skills their communities need. If something is preventing a class from advancing, perhaps we can help one another remove that barrier.”
“And speaking of class advancement. I was given an assignment to complete while visiting this zone, and the only thing I have not yet discussed is that there is a threat or event or something going on down south of here past the southern outpost. We heard rumors of it while in the southern outpost, but I have been given a mission to share that warning.”
“The specific wording was ‘Warn settlements of emerging southern regional threat.’”
Harlan said, “The south is someone else’s problem; we have our own.”
Petra said, “Food was our own problem, and it took someone else to find a solution for that. We can’t leave that village to fend whatever it is off by itself.”
Colm said, “If the system opened up the cave, maybe it is doing something there to challenge us.”
The group all started talking, pondering, and discussing the issue. Mark told them about the Rootmaw Alpha threat and the system warning to the zone to handle it. The system was letting people know now that they at least had to investigate it. Mark let them know that he would also send a team of experienced cave divers to investigate, but it was in their best interest to find out what the system wanted them to know.
When the discussion finally ended on the potential threat, they started discussing the future trade deals. It would include breeding pairs of all the livestock. There would be wagon and transportation knowledge traded, along with beehives and seeds of various types.
Mark’s group would provide wheat in large wheat shipments, future metal goods, Forgeworks access and training, and southern expansion options for people seeking more space or to build on the classes that they had.
They would both exchange knowledge by sending people to train, both from the east to the west and from the west to the east. They also had a list of people who wanted to go right away and help.
They had a Level 8 Stone Mason who wanted to work on construction to level his class and help build the new village in the southern zone. A Level 8 Herd Tender wanted to help with the new livestock that would be moving south, and the third was a Level 8 Field Farmer. All three wanted to continue advancing their classes.
In addition, they had a transport worker and someone interested in metalworking, as he had done it as a profession before showing up here. Another planned to work on wagon repair, one was a beekeeper assistant who would work with the new hives, and one was a quarry laborer. All five were under Level 8 and wanted to level up and get classes in their fields of work.
Mark was shocked at the large group that wanted to come. He had hoped to find three people total, and they now had eight from this village and the one they had found earlier.
Just after they completed the creation of the system contracts for all of this, Mark received a system message.
[Regional Stewardship Milestone Reached]
Silvermere Lake Region
Regional Integration Progress: 64%
◈ ◈ ◈
Then another message appeared.
[Zone Control Increased]
Silvermere Lake Region
Control Rating: 63%
New Regional Information Unlocked:Settlement Resource DistributionLivestock Density EstimatesTrade Route Efficiency MappingTransportation Bottleneck IdentificationPopulation Movement TrackingRegional Infrastructure Planning
Regional Benefits:Improved Trade Route StabilityReduced Travel Fatigue Along Connected RoadsIncreased Wagon EfficiencyImproved Settlement CoordinationFaster Infrastructure Survey Progress
Steward Bonus:
Regional cooperation and infrastructure planning recognized.
Contribution toward future class advancement increased.
◈ ◈ ◈
Mark now only needed to get the Forgeworks done to get his class upgrade.