Mistwater BasinDay 3 of Grainworks Initiative
Megan was reviewing the trade records in Beaver Crossing when Brian showed up and let her know he had reserved the harbor instance that ended next and that they needed to leave within the hour to make it on time. The group consisted of Brian, Megan, Clif, another wagon driver, Christy, a runner friend of Clif, and Cindy, a laborer. Megan was excited and had been eager to go since their village council meeting where they talked about trade. Mark had traveled south, and she was assigned to get a handle on trade.
The ride to the harbor went pretty fast. Brian had gained some new skills, and he had a smooth riding skill and one that made bumps not felt. He had gone particularly fast, as he was worried if they did not get there on time, someone would take their spot. They got there with a little time to spare; it took fifteen minutes for the timer on the instance to run out before they got to go in. As a group, they walked into the portal.
[Trade Instance Activated]
Flooded Supply Route
Objective: Restore supply delivery to Riverpoint Settlement
Population: 147
Current Stability: Declining
Estimated Duration: 3 Days
Performance Evaluation Active◈ ◈ ◈
Before any of them had gotten their bearings, they could hear a man yelling at them to grab a box and take it to the barge and stop looking around like they did not know how to work. They soon found out from another of the workers that he was the warehouse manager. All five of them each grabbed a box and hurried out of the warehouse while they tried to figure out what was going on.
Outside the warehouse they found a river with a barge tied up to a dock with workers looking at them like they were idiots for just standing there with the boxes.
A dockworker said, “Stop standing around. We're behind; we need to be off within ten minutes.”
The group started moving again. They quickly dropped off their boxes and hurried in to get more. About twenty minutes later, they had it loaded and had a pissed-off dockworker letting them know how unimpressed he was with their loading speed.
The group finally got a minute to catch their breath and look around. The roads were flooded, boats were damaged, and very few workers were around, for as many items were in the warehouse and boats were tied up there; there should have been more workers. Then finally a system screen appeared.
[Trade Instance Status]Trade Efficiency: 100%
Population Supported: 100%
Cargo Delivered: 0%
Instance Failure Threshold: 40%
Stage OneProblem: Food shortage
ChoicesSend all food immediatelySplit food between settlementsHold reserves◈ ◈ ◈
After all read the message, they still were clueless on what was expected of them, so they just stood there looking stupid. Finally, someone came out of the warehouse and walked over to Clif.
The worker said, “Hey boss, the guys and I are waiting for your orders, and, well, you are just standing out here talking to these workers. What should we be doing?”
Clif looked at the worker and looked at the group that had come with him. He re-read the choices and then said with the surest voice he could muster, “Tell the guys to get to work; we need to split the food between all the settlements and get it going right away.”
The group followed the worker back into the warehouse and found, well, a completely different warehouse. There were more than thirty workers standing around, and the first guy yelled, “Boss says to split all the goods between the settlements and ship it all out now.”
As a group, all the workers grabbed a box and headed for the door. Before he knew it, Clif was following them out with the others. To his utter astonishment, they were at another dock in a different town. This time there were four boats, and the workers, along with Clif and the others, started hauling cargo out. It was night before the boats were fully loaded and left. The first worker who had talked to them showed them to the bunkhouse, where they went to bed completely exhausted from loading boxes all day.
They were woken up by a loud horn the next morning with a system message.
[Trade Instance Status]Trade Efficiency: 72%
Population Supported: 45%
Cargo Delivered: 68%
Instance Failure Threshold: 40%
Stage One Failed: 3 small outposts received too much food, and one large village lost residents to starvation◈ ◈ ◈
Everyone stared at Clif, and he defensively said, “What? How was I supposed to know that was the wrong choice?”
Megan said, “Uh, I don't know what the right answer should have been, but we should ask some questions the next time rather than just picking a random choice off a list and going all in.”
Stolen story; please report.
Christy said, “I am just glad he did not pick me as boss; that was a total train wreck, and I am still sore from packing boxes all day.”
The group continued to banter and tease Clif until they received a new system message.
[Stage Two]Medicine needed upriverLumber needed for bridge repairLabor needed elsewhere◈ ◈ ◈
They stepped out of the bunkhouse and into yet another new river town. They saw a man walking towards them, and Christy quickly turned around and started examining the street behind them.
The dockworker said, “Hey boss, the boys are waiting for their orders.”
Everyone but Christy started to laugh. When Christy finally turned back around, the man was standing right in front of her and asked again, “Hey boss, the boys are waiting for their orders.” Christy looked around at everyone else's faces as they were trying not to laugh.
Christy said, “Please go back to the warehouse and wait. I will be right there with orders.”
As the man walked back towards one of the warehouses, they all kept an eye on him to make sure they knew which one he walked into.
Christy said, “Me and my big mouth. Does anyone have a suggestion?”
Brian said, “Medicine upriver sounds important.”
Cindy said, “I pick lumber.”
Clif said, “Okay, I pick the labor needed elsewhere then.”
Christy said, “Okay, not funny, guys. What should we do? If we do it wrong again, we will fail again.”
Megan said, “Last time we picked a random thing, and it was the wrong choice. Again asking some questions would be a smart idea.”
Christy said, “Okay, we can have you be boss.”
Megan said, “That choice was not given to us. I suggest we all split up and go ask questions around town and then meet Christy at the warehouse.”
Christy said, “And what will I be doing?”
Brian said, “Go pretend to be the boss; maybe get them to give you an inventory of all the goods. Basically stall them till we're back.”
With that, the group split up and went to get more information. They found that there was a huge issue at a village upstream and that the medicine they needed was overdue. Another one of them found that there was indeed a bridge needing repair, and it was short on lumber and labor. With that info in hand, they returned to Christy in the warehouse. They had spent almost three hours gathering info when Christy finally saw them return; she was in a panic.
The group huddled together. Christy said there was medicine, lumber, and tools, along with a bunch of extra workers who had come to do day labor. With that info in hand, they tasked Brian to get with a couple workers to get the medicine and get it delivered to the group upriver that needed it. Then the rest of the group got three barges and loaded them with lumber and all the extra workers and headed downriver to work on the bridge repair.
Each team went and labored all day. Brian and the two workers got to the village and delivered the medicine, but five villagers had died because of the delay. Meanwhile, the bridge team got on-site and was half complete when it got dark. Each group was ushered to a bunkhouse to sleep. They were all surprised when four of them entered from one door and Brian entered from another door at the same time. They all just shrugged; it was some kind of instance of craziness, but they were all exhausted and went to bed.
The next morning the horn blared, and they exited the bunkhouse in yet another town next to a river with a warehouse nearby.
[Trade Instance Status]Trade Efficiency: 59%
Population Supported: 74%
Instance Failure Threshold: 40%
Stage Two Failed: Villagers died because of late medicine delivery, the bridge was not completed, and a farmer trying to cross it late that night died in the river and lost his load when he fell through the incomplete bridge◈ ◈ ◈
They all started to argue about what they did wrong when the new system message appeared.
[Stage Three]Runner discovers shortcutLaborer identifies damaged bridgeWagon driver proposes alternate route◈ ◈ ◈
This time Megan took charge. Not wasting time, they quickly figured out what the issues were, and as a group, they planned out their strategy. They for once worked as a well-oiled machine. All of them put in their A game. Because they worked as a team, they completed this stage in half a day. They started looking around, trying to figure out what they should do next, when a portal appeared ten feet from them. They all walked into it together.
[Trade Instance Results]Trade Efficiency: 76%
Population Supported: 97%
Final Grade: C
Reward Modifier: Reduced
MeganHarbor Contribution +400Skill Gained: Trade Level 2
BrianHarbor Contribution +400Skill Gained: Wagons Level 4
CindyHarbor Contribution +400Skill Gained: Laborer Level 3
ClifHarbor Contribution +400Skill Gained: Animal Handling Level 4
ChristyHarbor Contribution +400Skill Gained: Swift Delivery Level 3
Unlocks
Logistics Concepts LearnedWarehouse ManagementCargo PrioritizationRoute PlanningFuture Unlocks Progression Earned◈ ◈ ◈
When they finally all stumbled out of the instance, they looked around. One of the fighters came over and asked how it was. Some of them said terrible; others said great. Then they asked about contribution. They all said 400, and then all those watching went crazy. The fighting instance had gotten down to its minimum of ten contributions per run. The group around them started to ask questions about what happened, and some of the fighters considered running it just for the contribution.
When the questions finally ended, the group checked out the contribution store, and there were now hundreds of things in the price range of what they had. Megan grinned as she bought a book on trade and purchased a skill on route planning. Brian was the next one to walk away; he had a new skill for animal control and a book on trade routes. The others all bought things too, but Megan was too busy thinking about what team she would put together for the next run and how they needed to think about this with a new mindset.
Megan mumbled, “Next time we're bringing people who actually know what they're doing,” as she walked back towards the wagon for the ride back to Beaver Crossing.