He needed to use it and work at it the old-fashioned way. On his way to the walls, he came across Luda who was talking to a group of koblins. So that’s where they went.
Seeing him, the sprightly young girl waved him down. With the koblins in tow, she rushed to join him. “Good morning, Hal!”
She seemed uncharacteristically happy. “Morning, Luda. What can I help you with?”
“Oh, but it’s you that I have come to help. But first I just… I wanted to thank you again for agreeing to grant me shelter. I know you must have a million things to do… but I needed you to know I was grateful. That all of the people you helped are beyond thankful.
“As I mentioned when we first met, most of the people who have chosen to follow me are artisans and crafters by trade. They are more than willing to lead and help where they might. If only you would direct them, or if you are busy you can tell me and I will make sure your orders are relayed faithfully.”
“That would be incredibly helpful, thank you. Why do I feel like that isn’t the real reason you came over?” Hal asked. Today was technically the first day of their Settlement and he hadn’t expected Luda would be so eager to help after such a long and trying journey.
They had arrived last night and Hal had been busy building and talking to a dragon all night. Today was the day he meant to assign people to their roles and get everything moving at full steam.
“I have… recently come into a new power of the Oracle and I would like to use it for the good of the Settlement,” she said.
“Pretty lady will helping-hand Havior, yes?” called out one of the koblins.
She turned to smile at them over her shoulder. “I will do my best.” Luda turned back to Hal, her ruby-red curls bouncing with the motion. “If he will have me.”
“I confess, I don’t truly understand what Oracle does,” he said. “I thought it was more of a religious thing to be honest. If you’re not opposed to following me to the building site of the wall I’d like to hear what you have planned.”
“That is very fair,” Luda said. She was bundled up in a thick coat and wide-brimmed hat that resembled a witch’s hat if it was white and festooned with gems and charms. “An Oracle… by themselves is quite weak. We are not a Class meant for battle. Instead, our aim lies in helping others. We can significantly improve the wellbeing of others.
“And… we can make people look at the hardships of their lives and face truths they would not otherwise be able to face. That is… one of the reasons the Founder - Rinbast, I mean - does not condone Oracles.
“We are a threat to manipulation and… if that was something you wished to employ I thought it best to talk to you first-”
“No,” Hal said sharply. When he saw how Luda reacted to his comment he softened his tone and his gaze, giving her a comforting smile. “I do not want to use manipulation or lies to get my way, Luda. This is meant to be a fresh start for all of us, a place where everybody is welcome provided they are willing to share and be part of something more.
“I do not want to resort to….” Hal motioned vaguely. “That is not who I am. If you have a method that resists manipulation to the masses, by all means, use it with impunity.”
Luda let out a sigh of relief. “That is good. I… I did not mean to offend you, Hal.”
“I know, Luda. It’s not what you said, but your willingness to do it that bothered me most. I do not want to put you - or anyone - into the position that they felt they had to bend their morals to suit me.”
“Psshkoh, Havior has unbendy faith-true in peoples!” cried Buffrix.
Hal shook his head. “If I can’t trust people to at least try to do the right thing without me telling them what that is every step of the way… what use is all of this? My goal is not to make everybody love me and fawn all over me. This Settlement is not about me.”
“Is it not?” Luda asked, confused.
“No, Luda. It isn’t. This is for you. For the koblins. For those who live out in the wilds braving the marauding bandits and monsters instead of bending knee to Rinbast and his tyranny. This is a home for all those who no longer feel like they have one.”
“And do you not wish to lead this burgeoning Settlement?” Luda asked.
Hal barked a laugh. “If you see anybody else who wants the job and is willing to safeguard this place then by all means let me know.” He looked at her with a grin. “How about you, do you want to lead these people? Tell them who goes where, what project gets built at the cost of another? Order tired, worn-out friends and family that they need to work all day long or else we’ll all die?”
Luda blanched at it, what little color she had on her rosy cheeks disappeared. “Gods no, that sounds horrible.”
“Exactly.”
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Hal tried to wave the discussion away. “I got off topic there, sorry. Tell me about your powers. You mentioned you could help me, and I didn’t miss that when I used Manashield you were able to improve its characteristics. Can you do that with other things? Is that what this is about?”
Luda bit her lip and looked around the valley. In the cold late morning light, it seemed pure and beautiful. More like a painting than something real.
It was still hard to think of it as his home. It won’t be if we don’t get these walls up, he reminded himself.
“To an effect, yes, but as I understand it the Manatree takes care of that mostly, yes?” she asked.
“It does, though I can’t say how strong it is,” Hal answered, hopping over a pile of discarded timber. It seemed the dwarves, in their haste to procure building materials had started to cut down nearby trees instead of waiting for a Lumberjack’s Hut to get put up.
“My main… strength, I suppose you could call it,” Luda said, scurrying around the debris and rejoining him. “Is that I can amplify the powers of another. I thought that… as the leader, you might have something I could help with.”
As she spoke, Luda’s face fell and she clapped both hands over her mouth before Hal could even reply. “Oh no. I am so sorry! I thought I was being helpful but I just realized I was being so horrendously presumptuous. Oh my Gods. I-did-not-mean-to-imply-of-course-I-didn’t-”
Luda rambled on for a few seconds more, her words spilling out so fast over one another that Hal thought she might pass out from lack of oxygen. “Calm down, Luda,” he said placing a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. You wanted to help.”
She nodded sheepishly.
“It just so happens, that I do have a project you could help me on. Though it remains to be seen whether or not I’ll actually be able to make anything of it. However, I will share it with you once we’re done here and if you find something you can do to help me, go for it.”
“I will do my best,” Luda said, her cheeks flushed bright red. “Y-you asked me what I could do with my powers as an Oracle.”
“I did,” Hal said, nodding. “What about it?”
“As I said, my main effect as an Oracle is to empower people, to throw off their own shackles or those placed upon them… and forgive me for saying so but I have noticed you are perhaps the most heavily shackled among all of us.”
Hal nearly missed a step. He pulled up short. And Luda, who was busy fidgeting and staring at her feet took a few extra steps before she realized Hal had stopped walking.
“What do you mean?” Hal asked slowly.
Like a deer in the headlight’s, Luda’s bright crystalline eyes went wide and she froze. “Only that… I can see quite a lot.” She pointed to the three crystalline diamonds embedded in her forehead. “I know a measure of your pain and I… might be able to help you to come to a place of cooperation instead of conflict.”
“You think that somehow you can make Besal… behave? Or what, that we’ll be friends somehow?” he asked, incredulous.
“Only that… the chains you bind yourself in are doing more harm than good. I realize I do not know the whole story and your friends are guarded with your secrets. Truly I only wish to help,
Hal.” She shrunk away from him and only then did Hal realize he was moving toward her.
He took a deep, steadying breath and blew it out in a white stream in the cold air. Air that he didn’t realize was quite so cold with the gift from Elora on his head. “It is a touchy subject, Luda. And perhaps something best for another time when we aren’t worrying about securing a food supply or whether or not we’ll have walls in place to fend off whatever is coming.”
Hal started walking again toward the valley’s entrance where the dwarves were already hard at work. Had they even slept?
“For now let’s shelve that discussion, huh?” Hal said to Luda. Poking the Beast at this juncture seemed foolish at best. As the dragon had put it, anything else would be a distraction. He needed to bend all his resources toward safeguarding his Settlement.
If they could only gain a foothold, something to cling onto amid all the fighting then he was sure they would be okay. No matter how many monsters came at them, if they could just gain that initial foothold they would survive.
All of his efforts needed to be for that singular goal. Everything else was secondary. Even his own wellbeing.
“As you wish, Hal,” Luda said with a bow of her head. “The… disciples that follow me, they have very high CP rates. Though not all in Construction as we would need, but I know of at least three who could come assist the walls being built. If you wished it.”
Hal looked from the distant dwarves back to Luda. “How many are skilled in Construction?” he asked.
“Well, there is Horald who you have met. He is a very skilled Master Chef. But I am afraid not terribly knowledgeable about Construction. However, I do feel that if you were to allow him to oversee meals he could make improvements.”
“Improvements, how?” Hal asked.
Luda bit her lip and looked to the side. “I mean no offense to the current cooks. I know Ashera means well and is talented in her own way but Horald is….”
Hal rolled his wrist, motioning for her to keep going. “You will not offend me by saying your people are good at what they do, Luda. This is supposed to be a safe place for you to feel free and pursue what you want so long as it does not harm another person. Please, be open and honest with me.”
Steeling herself with a gulp of cold morning air, Luda nodded and said, “Very well. It’s just….” She glanced at the koblins, who pointedly ignored her glance. “I have heard you befriended a dragon. And… well, forgive me if I am a little intimidated by that. But is it true? Is there really a dragon in this area and you-”
With a chuckle, Hal reached out and patted Luda on the shoulder. “That traveled fast, didn’t it? That was hardly more than a few hours ago.” He glanced back at the koblins, who also pointedly ignored him. They began to whistle off-tune - a very difficult feat considering their masks - and kick at random grassy bits.
Turning back to Luda he said, “It’s true. His name is Orrittam and he seems quite friendly. I don’t know if I befriended him necessarily as the other way around seems much more likely. But he has offered what aid he can to us. He actually has a lot of books and quite a few crafting stations up in the mountain.
“If you would like to go, or perhaps send one of your disciples, I am sure we could arrange for it. But you were saying about Horald? If I were to appoint him in charge of our meals, what would that do?”
“Not only would they likely be more enjoyable with stronger effects for those eating them but he could likely find a way to cut down on waste,” she said, her eyes roaming the mountain to the north as if she could catch a glimpse of the mighty dragon.
She cleared her throat and added, “He was not sure of the specifics without seeing the setup, but if we could have a single centralized place to cook and deliver the food we could cut down on the amount of time we spend in the morning.
“But with staff working under him, Horald believed he could not only dramatically increase the Cooking skill of those who wanted it, but also reduce the amount of raw food required by a quarter.”
Right now they were consuming roughly 20% more than usual in a manner of speaking. Owing to the Outpost Settlement type, they had a 10% increase to consumption and a 10% decrease to production.
So while they pulled from their dwindling stores, they would only take a 10% penalty but as they continued to forage and find food in the wild it would essentially become a 20% penalty.
If Horald could do what Luda said, he would turn that into a faint 5% bonus. At their current rate of 33u of food per day, they were now sitting at 329. About 9 days left. Enough that they didn’t need to worry about food until after the Guild Mission.
But if Horald could reduce that consumption by 25% they would be down to about 25u per day. Giving them four more days of food. “I’ll talk to Ashera, have Horald talk to her okay? Ashera will make sure he has everything that he needs to get going by tomorrow morning.
“Now tell me about the rest of these people. What skills do they have? You said a few are skilled with Construction, just how many?”
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“Gregor, is the most skilled with Construction. I do not know his past but I believe he used to be quite good at it. Then there are his sons, Milas and Silas. They followed largely in their father’s footsteps and are both skilled with Construction. But each truly has a passion for their respective crafts of Alchemy and Weaving.
“They are… kind souls but they seek their father’s approval above all. And as their father was an architect of some renown, they put their passions aside in order to get noticed.” Luda bit her lip and glanced over to the row upon row of dwarves all passing materials back and forth, getting [Iron Pickaxes] to the right people and [Iron Shovels] in the hands of those digging.
“What is it Luda?” Hal asked, his eyes likewise glued on the dwarves.
They were the very image of efficiency and teamwork. Not a single burly man or woman running about without a purpose. Like a well-oiled machine, they passed materials around so fast and smoothly that it was entrancing.
It was almost like a conveyor belt. Everything went to where it needed to go despite the number of hands it passed through.
As Hal watched, he came to understand that some things were slightly off. The locations they had plotted out for the walls were less than ideal.
A black-bearded dwarf walked up to them, he wore stained overalls and mopped the sweat off his dirtied brow despite the cold. “We’re all full up, boyo,” he called to Hal. “Craftin’ Bands filled up on this end. If ye want a spot yer gonna have to scoot yerself on down to the eastern side with Band five or something around them’s parts.”
“If you would allow me,” Hal said with a smile. “I could help with the plotting of some of these constructions you’re doing. I could shave off a bit of the CP requirement at the same time.”
The dwarf gave Hal a steely gaze. “Durvin warned me about ye. Always with yer fancy tricks. Well, come on then lad! Out with it. Show me how its done, eh?”
Hal gave an apologetic shrug to Luda. The dwarf reached into one pocket, then another, and pulled out a pair of small glasses. He shoved them on and gave Hal a squinting look then one at Luda.
“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure, lass,” he said, extending one dirty and calloused hand. “Name’s Athagan Ashbrow. I’m what passes fer a leader o’ all these dunderheads who think they know how to hammer a post into the ground.”
“My name is Luda,” she said taking his hand daintily and doing a little curtsy. “It is an honor to meet you Mister Ashbrow.”
“Aye, just call me Athagan. Everybody do.”
“Very well, Athagan. I have a few members of my group that are quite skilled in Construction, I was just talking about them with Hal. Do you think you could use the help?”
He spluttered and looked at Hal, then back at her. “Do I think I could use the help?! Ye can bet yer lily-white keister I could use the durned help! Send ‘em! Go on an’ get ‘em girl. We ain’t building fer fun. We got a war brewi
n’!”
Luda curtsied again and looked frantically at Hal.
“Find me after,” he said.
Athagan snorted like a charging bull and shook his head, muttering and grumbling, “Do I think I could use some durned help!”
She took off at a run as if Athagan was chasing her and growling like a mad dog on her heels. Hal shook his head. “You didn’t need to be so hard with her Athagan.”
The dwarf gave a deep belly laugh and wiped a tear from his eye. “Oh, but look at how the sweet girl runs! Got a fire in her, ye just gotta know how to stoke it! She wants to help Hal, any durned fool could see it.”
“Fair enough,” Hal said, conceding the point. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the koblins were torn between following Luda or following Hal.
Once again Athagan made up their mind for them. “Ye lot,” he said pointing at the koblins. A few of them questioningly pointed a mitten at their chest. “Yeah, ye! Go on over to the east side o’ the valley entry. Talk to Gragon Copperpots. He’ll assign ye a Craftin’ or Gatherin’ Band based on yer skills and what ye want to do.” Athagan put his hands on his hips and leaned menacingly forward. “And doin’ nothing don’t count!”
The koblins ran in full flight. They bumped into each other and fell down like some sort of cartoon until Hal got in there and righted them. Pointing them toward the east.
“Mornhammer guide the poor sod that has to direct them koblins,” Athagan said with a shake of his head. “But, enough o’ that. I got yer undivided attention now lad, and I mean to have ye make good on yer word. Show me how ye want all this set up!”
Hal nodded and Athagan followed him to the west where the sheer wall of white stone was butted up against their first construction area. Really, it was small things. Little improvements to the way they were building or bracing the construction that he saw was wrong.
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