The Land: Predators
Page 98
Randolphus had told him that he didn’t know of any other settlements that had been offered the Adventurer Specialization. There were obviously Dungeons in other cities, and the Dungeon in Law was reported to have predated the city, but apparently Law had chosen the Conqueror settlement specialization. It provided significant bonuses when they invaded and attacked other peoples. Randolphus pointed out that the founders of Law might also not have been given the choice since they had never been Dungeon Masters.
The chamberlain seemed quite excited about the possibilities of choosing the path of the Adventurer. He pointed out that having a rare specialization might also give rare bonuses to the settlement. Randy also reminded him that the Dungeon was already making over a hundred and eighty Dungeon Points a day. With another 10% boost, the specialization would level in less than a week!
There were a thousand reasons to pick each specialty, but he realized that Hisako’s initial advice would be his guiding light. Who did he want to be? Would he choose something that would only make him stronger, or would he choose something that would make his people more powerful? When he realized that was the real choice he was making, a smile bloomed on his face. The choice wasn’t really a choice at all. He chose his people. He chose adventure!
The Path of the Adventurer!
Your people will follow your example and be driven to take chances and push their limits. The call of Adventure is not safe, but those who survive walking it will be the strongest version of themselves! Watch well, for though your people will surely change over the years to come, the shift may also occur in the blink of an eye!
Specialization Level: 1 “An adventure, you say?”
Ruler Bonus:
+10% Attack and Defense while in a Dungeon or the Labyrinth
+10% chance to find Nodes
Settlement Bonus:
+10% Dungeon Points from any source
+10% Dungeon Loot
Leveling Conditions:
Generate 0/1,000 Dungeon Points
Despite his massive amount of deliberation, nothing immediately changed in the village. As the days went on though, Richter didn’t forget the quasi-warning that the very nature of his people might be altered because of his choices.
The Townhall wasn’t the only building completed while the village prepared for war. The builders also created more housing for the village’s burgeoning population in relatively short order. Each wooden longhouse only required one hundred and twenty Building Points to complete, start to finish. There was more than enough wood, tar and thatch to accomplish the task and, with the construction crew making 212.6 BP/day the village was able to build almost two a day.
Richter told the builders to keep focused on erecting long houses until they reached the magic number of sixteen. That was the amount required to house everyone in the village, minus the pixies of course, in adequate conditions. It would put just under sixty people under each roof. That obviously wasn’t an adequate long-term solution. Richter wanted to start building individual homes at some point, but for now it would do.
As soon as the first longhouse was completed, Richter gained a well-appreciated notification window.
The Housing available is now above 50% capacity for your population. Pay heed, ruler: you must provide housing before the weather turns or you will suffer further penalties without further warning. Rule Well!
To the chaos seed, it looked like after long months of prep and battle, his village was finally coming alive! Every day, his people were engaged in growing the community. It was a moment of incredible satisfaction. He had taken many risks and had predicated his dream of a village on a diverse population working together, made stronger by their differences. There had been consequences, both personal and public. People had died, and the wounds those losses had wreaked on his heart were still not healed. He had needed to make sacrifices and there were times that he felt like giving up. Looking at his people now though, united in purpose even with battle on the horizon, Richter knew he had made the right choice in putting his faith in hope, rather than giving in to his fears.
CHAPTER 86 – Day 148 – Kuborn 38, 0 AoC
It wasn’t just the surface of the village that changed over three days. The increased Luck of the village affected everything. That was why, halfway through the third day, Bartle and Bea came running up to the Forge of Heavens, looking for Richter. Krom started shouting at them for rushing into his domain just before the chaos seed saw them. Both Scholars ignored the dwarf and Bartle shouted, “Eureka!”
Richter’s face wrinkled in confusion. Not because he didn’t understand the word, but he just didn’t understand how the Scholar knew the word. Wasn’t it specific to Earth? Then he thought about it: maybe not. He’d looked it up once and it was just “thought” to be attributed to Archimedes. Maybe “Eureka” was ubiquitous. Then again, Bartle was talking in commonspeak and maybe it was just the equivalent word that Richter was hearing. Then again, maybe he’d just let his ADD get away from him again. He was pretty sure it was the last option, because the Scholar talked for an entire minute without Richter hearing a word thanks to his shortbus stream-of-consciousness moment.
After asking Bartle to repeat himself, Richter found out that one of the village researchers had had an Epiphany. Ever since building the House of Scholarship, there had been a +1.2% chance of the village having a scientific breakthrough. Bea explained that the closer a tech got to being fully researched, the higher the chance of a member of the research team having an “aha” moment. An Epiphany wasn’t just a lucky break though, it was actual magic at work.
Apparently, the researcher in question had, for a moment, quite literally glowed. Then the scroll the researchers had been recording their progress on had started to glow as well. The missing information was filled in as the Universe awarded the research team the remaining fifty-one Research Points needed to finish. With an excited grin, Bartle handed Richter the scroll and a prompt appeared as he unrolled it.
Know This! Anyone relevant who belongs to your settlement will now be able to access this information!
Congratulations! You have researched: Predict Auspicious Times I
Your people can now predict specific cosmic alignments that will give extra effects to weapons and armor that are created in the Forge of Heavens. You are guaranteed to identify at least 1 instance per month. It will also give hints to the specific circumstances required to trigger these effects. This tech will only work inside the Core building and will only predict up to one month in advance.
You have researched 1 of 7 ranks of this tech. Researching higher ranks will extend the range of your predictive ability and allow for a greater number of auspicious times to be predicted each month. As of now, only you have access to the bonuses provided by this tech. Access the interface of the Forge of Heavens to provide access to others.
Richter immediately accessed his interface and gave access to Krom. He also made sure that Krom would be able to extend permission to whomever the dwarf saw fit. The Smith wasn’t close by, but the chaos seed chuckled as he thought about how Krom’s salt-and-pepper beard was probably splitting with a grin as he read the prompt. Hopefully this would give his villagers an even greater advantage in battle.
Being guaranteed only one “auspicious time” a month didn’t seem like much, but the benefits of triggering the Core building’s special ability gave unique bonuses. If he was reading it right, the number of predicted alignments wasn’t limited to one a month; it was that at least one auspicious occasion per month would be foreseen. With luck there might be more. He could also research the second rank of the tech if he wanted to improve the odds of getting a special weapon or piece of armor.
Finishing the research begged an obvious question. What tech would they unlock next? Richter accessed the research tab on his village interface. He was once again humbled by the vast sea of knowledge that existed. The science interface looked like a miniaturized version of the village sitting like a bubble underneath a s
ea of grey mist. Around it, eight spheres hovered, pushing back the fog. Two of these spheres were glowing, indicating that they had been researched. More globes branched off them, also pushing back the mist.
Saying he had barely scratched the surface of available techs was generous. When Richter zoomed out, it became clear that the science his village had access to was less than 1% of 1% of 1% ad infinitum. Research was another area where his Limitless ability gave the village an advantage. Most settlements were restricted from researching techs because they were specific to other races. Elves could not research minotaur-specific techs, for instance. His ability removed that restriction. The Mist Village could one day become the most knowledgeable settlement in The Land, but, of course, that possible future would still require blood, sweat, tears and massive amounts of time.
Zooming out on the science interface also showed the one other open spot that had been cleared in the ocean of grey mist. The area around his miniature village and this other area lit up like lamps seen far away on an especially foggy night. The second set showed the knowledge he’d been given by the Tefonim queen about building portals. As he was the Master of his settlement, it was also added to the research interface. Unfortunately, he couldn’t just add the tech of anyone else to the village.
Randolphus, for instance, had paid close attention to the inner workings of Yves’ monarchy for nearly a century. While he wasn’t a Professed Scholar, the Spy had told Richer that he did understand a good deal about certain technologies. The village couldn’t access his expertise though, not until certain prerequisite techs had been researched. The chamberlain wasn’t the only one who had knowledge that could help the village.
Enalise had revealed that she understood the tech Mining I well enough to benefit the village. As the precursor to that tech had not been revealed yet though, it was only of use to her alone. The other thing that complicated the issue was that each settlement had a unique approach to knowledge. The starting tech a community had access to varied due to the race of the settlement, its location and many other factors. While in some communities Mining might be one of the first techs made available, in the Mist Village it might be revealed by researching Farming I, or it might not be revealed until a series of other technologies had been researched first.
Randolphus told him that anyone who had a formal Job in the village would automatically advance techs once they were revealed, almost like a freebie reward for choosing the right people to take positions of responsibility in his village. Making the chamberlain Town Administrator would yield massive gains in research in the months and years to come, but until the prereqs were researched the technology and the perks it offered remained frustratingly beyond reach.
Richter wasn’t one to dwell though. Instead he focused on what he could do. He immediately dismissed the idea of researching any more portal technologies. The cheapest among them required nearly thirty-three thousand Research Points. A quick check of his village’s research potential showed that pursuing any of those would be a long wait for a train don’t come.
Available Research Points (RP): 0
Daily Earned Research: 14.63 RP/day
1) 1 Point per Ley Lines: 4 Total
2) 0.1 Points per level of Research Skill*: 9.3
Research Rate Modifiers: +10% rate for House of Scholarship (level 1)
*Normal research restrictions apply
Instead, he focused on the techs branching off from the representation of the village. Each tech showed up on the interface as a globe. They were also assigned a “tier” which showed how many connections they were removed from the miniature village on the science screen. All he could see were the techs branching off the village or techs that had already been researched. He never knew if advancing the village’s knowledge would reveal five new options, as had happened when he’d researched the Forge of Heavens tech, or if it would be a dead end, like what had just happened with Predict Auspicious Times I. The village’s latest scientific advance had revealed no further science spheres, but the name of the sphere had changed to Predict Auspicious Times II, allowing the village to research the second rank of the tech.
MIST VILLAGE SCIENCE TREE
TECH
COST
TIER
DESCRIPTION/REQUIREMENTS
Farming I
89
1
Increases yield from cultivated crops by 5% total.
Animal Husbandry I
102
1
Increases the health of your animals by 5%. Usable products from domesticated animals are also increased by 5%.
*Requires your settlement to have domesticated animals.
Soldiery I
98
1
Increases the learning curve of your soldiers by 10%. Also increases attack and defense of trained soldiers by 5%. *Requires a barracks. UNAVAILABLE!
Construction I
132
1
Increases building speed and building durability by 5%.
*Requires a workshop.
This Tech provides new blueprints!
Mason’s Shop (level 1): When built, will decrease waste and increase efficiency when quarrying stone. Increases usable yield of local quarries by 10%. Increases productivity when quarrying stone by 10%.
Logging Camp (level 1): When built, will decrease waste and increase efficiency when logging. Increases usable yield of local wooded areas by 10%. Increases productivity when harvesting forests by 10%.
Enchantments I
61
1
Opens the possibility of learning, altering and creating basic enchantments.
Astronomy II
104
1
Gives a basic idea of the movement of the stars, planets, and other cosmic bodies.
Astrology I
89
2
Gives a rudimentary understanding of how the movements of the cosmos can predict events in The Land.
Forge of Heavens
---
2
Unlocks a branch of research that is specific to your Core building, the Forge of Heavens. (Unique)
Learn Enchantments I
294
3
Increases the chance of the Forge learning new enchantments by 5%
Predict Auspicious Times II
204
3
Provides increased knowledge of specific dates and times to forge weapons and armor in order to obtain extra effects (at least 2 a month)
Elementum Bonus to Spell Barriers I
438
3
Increases the spell barrier penetration of Forge of Heaven weapons by 20%
Elementum Bonus to Spell Resistance I
437
3
Increases the spell resistance given to each piece of armor by 2%
Basic Spell Theory I
56
1
Provides a basic understanding of the magic of the Basic Elements and ley lines.
Metallurgy II
214
1
Decreases the amount of metal needed to make arms and armor by 10%. (Tech advanced by one level due to inherent knowledge of villager in the Job: Smith) *Requires access to smithy.
Alloy I
202
2
Increases the likelihood of discovering new alloys with increased capabilities when experimenting with new combinations of metals. Increases the durability and either attack or defense of new alloys by 10%.
*Requires: Access to smithy + metals necessary for experimentation.
**Metals used in this research will be slowly consumed.
Smelter I
254
2
Increases heat in the smelter, allowing for greater malleability of worked metals. Increases production speed of forged items by 10%.
Smithing Tools I
207
2
Increases the caliber of all s
mithing tools by 10%. Increases the chance of your smiths to create arms and armor of higher quality by 10%.
The fact that there were so many techs available was too much of a good thing. He was almost grateful that researching Predict Auspicious Times I hadn’t revealed more options. Richter also decided not to invest more precious Research Points into that branch of science until he saw how it manifested itself. Similarly, the other three tier-3 technologies that branched off the Forge of Heavens tech were a bit too specialized in Richter’s opinion. He wanted the next scientific breakthrough to help the village as a whole. The same argument applied to the tier-2 knowledge stemming from Metallurgy and Astronomy. That left the six tier-1 techs.
Richter didn’t deliberate long. Really, there was only one option that made sense. His village was exploding with high Productivity, but there was still a great deal to do and build. He decided to keep the good times rolling.
The Mist Village has begun research on Construction I
Progression: 0/132 RPs.
Predicted time to completion: 9 days, 32 minutes and 29 seconds
Rewards:
Increases building speed and building durability by 5%.
This Tech provides new Blueprints.
Mason’s Shop (level 1): When built, will decrease waste and increase efficiency when quarrying stone. Increases usable yield of local quarries by 10%. Increases productivity when quarrying stone by 10%.