Village of Noobtown: A LitRPG Adventure (Mayor of Noobtown Book 2)

by Ryan Rimmel

  Each city wall, if fully repaired, had slots for 20 defenders. As being slotted to the wall gave you significant advantages in combat, that was great. If I had to man all four walls, that was 80 people. I would be forced to dig deeply into the elderly and the children to come up with that number of fighters. Furthermore, none of those people would have weapons or armor to speak of. Hell, some of them may not even be able to hold weapons or armor. Some of them may not even be potty trained.

  We had about 30 capable fighters, that I knew of, in the village. Only 2 of them had classes. The rest were militia who could use better equipment. The militia had a fair number of archers and spearmen, but holding the city wall with such limited forces would be tricky. If we focused on crafting weapons and armor, we might be able to get some more people equipped in a few days.

  I issued the orders to increase weapon and armor production. I also increased the priority to ‘high’ on repairing the wall. We had the barrier; however, the massive amount of damage that the town had once taken led me to an unsettling theory. The barrier was not impossible to bypass.

  As I set the orders, a number of red flags sprang up in my menus. The town was missing many items that would be required to really set up the defenses properly. Some we could eventually make out of internal reserves; others would be nearly impossible to get. I didn’t even recognize what a refined focus crystal was or have any idea how to get light weave cotton for enchanted bandages.

  Sighing, I closed the menu. As a low level village, Windfall was in trouble if, or more likely when, an attack came. Still, the odds had been against us before. Unlike then, we actually had a bit of time to attempt a thought out plan of attack.

  Badgelor and Shart were in another screaming argument outside, so I decided to nope out of that. Yawning once, I went to sleep to the sound of crickets, the wind blowing across the tall grass, an owl hooting...

  And a badger calling a demon “a flaming shit pile.”

  Chapter 14: Town Hall

  I awoke with a start. I had a new prompt in my vision, and it was quite a bit bolder than what I was used to seeing. I groaned at the glowing, golden velociraptor. I’d been messing around with the maps and had assigned a velociraptor as the town’s icon. I meant to change it to something a bit more respectable but had never gotten around to it.

  Selecting the dinosaur, I was immediately prompted with a notification.

  Windfall Village is now level 1. You have met all the criteria for leveling up. Congratulations!

  As Mayor, you may now choose a Village Specialization!

  Windfall Village is now level 2. You have met all the criteria for leveling up. Congratulations!

  As Mayor, you may now choose a Village Perk!

  Windfall Village is now level 3. You have met all the criteria for leveling up. Congratulations!

  As Mayor, you may now choose a Village Perk!

  Windfall Village is now level 3. As the town founder, you gain a Founder’s Perk! Enjoy!

  What!?

  I went to the town menu and discovered it was significantly more organized than before. There were new prompts and menus indicating how much food we had, (just enough), how many resources we had, (more than expected), and even the glaring problems that the village was encountering, (weak defenses). As I had looked at this menu literally last night, I didn’t see how it could have changed this much.

  Glancing at my skill sheet, my Administration skill was unchanged. Then, I remembered the level up prompts and found that section of the town menu. A tab that clearly stated ‘Level Up’ had been added. Intrigued, I selected it.

  The level 3 announcement was at the top. It had occurred because we’d reclaimed the mine. Further down, I saw that the second level had occurred because farming was in place. The first level had occurred because we had a working Town Hall. Not prioritizing the Town Hall had been, in hindsight, a mistake. We would have remained a level 0 village forever without it.

  How is it a working Town Hall, already?

  I checked the maintenance menu and, sure enough, the Town Hall was fixed. Every member of the repair crews had worked all night to get the Town Hall repaired. I hadn’t even listed it as a high priority. I did remember a few of them asking when we were going to fix it, but I’d never really had a good answer for them. I didn’t see how they managed the repair with the limited stock of materials we had, but I guessed it had been just enough. However, looking at the improved menus, I understood why it had been such a priority.

  Having a Town Hall seriously expanded what town information I could see. The town’s inventory was one thing. I was pleased to discover a hitherto unknown supply of iron and nails hidden in the basement of the church. I hadn’t even known the church had a basement. I selected ‘clean up’ there and also ‘salvage supplies’.

  I also had a new employment slot for the Town Hall, a clerk. I flipped to there and found several members of the town with the necessary skills. Glancing through those, I chose a young man named Mar, mainly because his name was short and easy to say. He accepted immediately. Now that the Town Hall was rebuilt, I could see the names and detailed stats on job descriptions. It was a nice little feature.

  Town Clerk, an administrator who regulates the orderly operation of the town. He reports directly to the mayor and can be used to assign low level quests between village members.

  Sighing contentedly, I went through the Village Perks and Specializations. A Village Specialization allowed me to choose which direction the town developed. There were a few options for a village. We could choose to specialize in harvesting, which improved yields from all our farms, or mining, which improved yields from all our mines. There were also options for fishing, lumber and other assorted resources. While those buffs were nice, they seemed pretty generic. Without trade partnerships, having too much of anything didn’t really help very much. There was no option for specializing in defense. That would have been too easy.

  Glancing at the last specialization, I saw that it was metalworking. This was actually an advanced specialization that the town only qualified for due to my UnBound trait which removed level restrictions from my selections. It required the town to have a working mine and a blacksmith, which we did. Metalworking granted bonuses on all tasks related to mining, smelting and smithing of all types. Figuring that we could always use more tools, I selected it.

  Immediately, the town resource page flashed. I examined it. We were now producing 3.3 bars of iron per miner. That was just shy of an extra bar of iron every day, which would be useful. The town blacksmith also saw a level of improvement.

  I had two perks, as well, but those were a bit more complicated. There was an improved mine perk, which treated the mine as one level higher than it was. That improvement allowed access to better kinds of ores. With our needed emphasize on armor and weapons, that would be amazing. Other perks performed similarly for all the other resource types, but I really wanted to see what all my options were first.

  Moving to the outer ring of options, I saw a few that were more unusual. Several were unique ‘town council’ jobs that could only be unlocked through this menu. Merchant added a highly skilled merchant to the town’s job list. That would increase the value of trade in the town by 10%. There was a chief craftsman position that I could assign a blacksmith to. That would make the blacksmith 7% better at his role. Beyond that, there was a perk that increased everyone's movement speed in town by 5%, which I had to imagine would help productivity somewhat.

  Then, I noticed the option to increase the size of the barrier. I almost took that, before discovering that the barrier increased significantly at every level, as did the barriers at any of the sites affiliated with the town. Bringing up my map, I saw that the barrier had indeed expanded; it now absorbed the mine. Another option popped up, Reinforce Barrier. This rendered the barrier more resistant to siege.

  There it was, the confirmation of what I had assumed. There was a way to get through the barrier. I found a siege timer on
it, listing the 1st stage as 30 days. I was almost happy, until I read further. Thirty days was the maximum that the barrier would last. A large, well-equipped army would deplete it faster. A large army was categorized as anything over the village’s population. The bigger the army, the faster the barrier would fail. I had to image a Goblin Horde would be overwhelming in size. If I was understanding correctly, the barrier would also start to shrink in size during a siege. Well, that’s just flippin fantastic.

  The special job list had included several worthwhile positions, but I didn’t have a good enough feel for the town or some of the people, yet. I was hesitant to guess which job would be the most useful. I did toy with the idea of selecting an assistant mayor to help with daily minutia but decided against it. After reviewing everything, I made a decision. I took the upgrade for the mine and saved the other perk for later.

  With those selected, the mine instantly improved. It had started with a maximum of 12 possible miners, with most of those slots locked due to the traps in the mine. Now the mine had positions for 18 possible miners, and an extra metal worker for operating the smelter. The upgrade had appeared to remove all the traps. More accurately, it triggered them, but I wasn’t there to suffer the consequences. The miners were, though. Fuuuuuuuuck. Quickly checking the list of miners, I was incredibly relieved to see that none of them had died. Not gonna mention that to anyone. I am a terrible mayor.

  Before the change, I had 4 employees at the mine. Two were miners, bringing in 6 bars of ore a day. Now, at least in theory, it could go up to 39.6 bars of ore per day. That’s when I noticed that the required tools were flashing red. A quick examination there revealed that the mine required better tools to achieve these higher production numbers. Additionally, a lack of fuel for the smelter prevented us from operating at peak efficiency.

  In short, we could get up to nearly 40 bars of ore per day when everything was running smoothly. However, we lacked the materials for me to assign any more employees now. Once the mine had upgraded tools and fuel, I could fill all the remaining positions. I would have to discuss the tool situation with the smith, but I was confident that we could get production up at least 20 bars within a few days.

  The improved amounts of metal should make it possible for the smith to produce weapons and some armor for the larger army that I was envisioning.

  With that satisfied, I walked out of the infirmary. I found my two sidekicks sitting on either side of the small patio leading into the building. Badgelor had partially buried himself, so that only his snout was exposed. Shart was perched on top of a pole, glaring at him.

  “Let’s go,” I stated, hobbling out of the building. I still had the rest of the day on this bum leg and having these two with me wasn’t going to improve my mood.

  “Where are we going?” asked Badgelor, as he shuffled over and started walking beside me.

  “We are going mayoring.”

  Chapter 15: The Problems with a Socialist Utopia

  I ran by the smithy on the way to the Town Hall. It was being run by a brawny man named HankAlvin. He was ecstatic. Up until now, he’d been mostly salvaging old goblin equipment, along with the odds and sods we’d occasionally find in the village. He’d gotten enough nails to fix the Hall from the goblin equipment that SueLeeta had dropped off yesterday. Now, he had a pile of metal coming his way, allowing him to fulfill all the jobs he’d intended.

  “I assume we are going to be paid some gold soon?” asked HankAlvin, recovering from his initial moment of joy.

  I realized at this point that the man had been working for about 5 days now, and I hadn’t paid him a single coin. I hadn’t paid anyone anything. I didn’t really have that many coins. Gathering money hadn’t been a top priority, because there was nothing to spend them on. Oh. That was going to be a problem.

  “You forgot that people need money, didn’t you?” stated Shart.

  “Shut up,” I replied.

  “You forgot that people expect to get paid,” Shart teased.

  “I’ve been busy,” I grumbled. HankAlvin looked at me expectantly.

  “Look, Dum Dum, this isn’t a completely socialist state. You need to pay people.”

  “What, pray tell, are they going to do with money? There is absolutely nothing to buy,” I hissed. “The town doesn’t have an economy.”

  “Yet.” replied the demon, “If you start paying them, they will have coins. If people have coins, other people will open businesses. Then, the people with the coins will have things to spend their coins on. The magic of commerce will take effect, and the town will prosper. It’s simple economics. Ever hear of it, or is your brain too full of goblin doody for financial matters?”

  “Yeah, simple,” I grumbled, choosing to ignore Shart’s inane insults. For now, at least. “Except, I’m not exactly swimming in gold.”

  Shart chuckled. I wondered what the ‘magic of commerce’ was. It was probably actual freaking magic. Sigh. Anything to get people off my payroll would be useful, I supposed.

  Reviewing my wealth, I saw I had 3 gold, 87 silver and 14 copper. It was an amount of money that I knew was insufficient to the task at hand. Remembering the town inventory made me wonder. There were items listed on it that I hadn’t known about. Maybe the town had money, too. Bringing up the menu, I was not disappointed.

  Town of Windfall, Level 3. A metalworking village.

  Coffers: 134 gold, 22 silver, 5 copper

  That wasn’t an insane amount of money, but it was certainly enough to float the town for a short period of time. Reading through the menus, I saw that the town would actually get back a fair percentage of that money in taxes. It wouldn't be revenue neutral, but it would probably make our wealth last somewhat longer.

  That left me with an unemployment date and a financial crisis date to look forward to.

  Then, I found the red dot next to the morale tab, which promised even more fun. I didn’t know we had a morale tab, so, discovering that it was in the red and headed down was a glorious experience. Glancing through that, I found a number of town residents were becoming upset that they were working for free. They were happy about free rent and no taxes, but the working for free was killing morale.

  Third crisis, mutiny in two days. Fourth crisis, getting sieged and killed by goblins. I had a fun job.

  “Well, of course. I was already headed to the Town Hall to do just that, but I suppose I could set them up now. Since the Town Hall was completed last night.” I said. HankAlvin smirked.

  “I figured you were waiting on that repair until you got a few more days’ worth of free labor out of us,” he stated knowingly. “So, when you put it in the repair roster, we got it fixed right up.”

  “Wouldn’t have expected anything less,” I grumbled. I guessed this place wasn’t a socialist utopia, after all.

  Walking out of the smithery, I brought up the wages menu and found the average. All the common laborers got paid 10 silver a day; the specialists got 30. For whatever reason I didn’t have to pay SueLeeta and Fenris, also they didn’t seem to be suffering any morale penalties. The 83 working people in the village. There were 64 laborers and 19 specialists. That placed the total as 12 gold and 10 silver per day in wages. That was tolerable, but any projects that were performed for the town I now had to pay for. All those repairs that had been free this morning were suddenly costing silver.

  The town would pay the miner, who would mine the ore, and the metalworker, who would smelt it. Then, the blacksmith would use the town’s money to buy the iron ingots. He would labor upon it and turn it into nails or other finished goods. However, because we were repairing the town, all that money just poofed away into a building. The town could technically collect rent, but I wasn’t charging any. The only thing that made sense was that every time this closed loop spun, the town lost money.

  The magic commerce wizardry would eventually remove some of those people from government employ. They would be able to work downstream in jobs supporting the town in the free market. To
do that, the town needed to be developed economically and have a positive cashflow. Neither issue was being addressed at the moment. Lazy mayor.

  In short, the town’s wealth was going to last 11 days, unless I could augment it with some form of external wealth. Our finances would also depend on how many fees the town could collect. I wondered how the village had supported itself before, based on its current setup. Then, it hit me. This village wasn’t ever supposed to be a self-sustaining town. It was a Noobtown.

  Much like any boomtown, Windfall’s economy had been based on supporting its cash cow, adventurers. They would go out into the wilderness, do quests, get gold, and come back into Windfall to spend it. When you reviewed the town from that angle, everything made sense. We had many more weapon, armor, and potion shops directed towards adventurers than could otherwise be explained.

  I had earned over 3 gold in just a few days’ worth of activity in the forests. If there were 20 or so adventurers, this town would easily be able to support itself with a nice surplus. The problem was that there were no adventurers. I’d need to come up with another source of funds coming from outside the town. I’m betting the loss of that cash cow had started the decline of Windfall, however long ago that happened.

  That was for later, though. Right now, I needed to get to the Town Hall. I quickly approved the wages, added in a 10% tax and left rent at 0. I couldn’t yet charge rent. Not until I knew some money was in people’s pockets.

  Chapter 16: Clerks

  Suddenly, everyone was ecstatic to see me. I would like to think this was based on my good looks and charming personality but, alas, it was the money. I miss my wife. The coins left the town’s coffers instantly and the people had just received their first pays. I might have missed someone running around and handing out money, but I somehow doubted that was the case.